Abstract
Ugandan aquaculture is in the process of development; however, it requires access to an affordable live food source, such as brine shrimp Artemia. This study fits within a broader feasibility study of domestic Artemia production in salt lakes. Since Uganda is a landlocked country, the only opportunity for live water food sources lies in the salt lakes in the west of the country. This study used saline water from one of these lakes, Lake Bunyampaka (salinity 72 mg L−1). Two Artemia strains, i.e., the Great Salt Lake strain, which is the dominant strain on the market, and the Vinh Chau strain, which is by far the most inoculated strain in the world, were assayed for their survival, growth, and reproduction in diluted Lake Bunyampaka water, using natural seawater as control. The organisms were fed live freshly cultured microalgae Tetraselmis suecica ad libitum. Our study revealed that the Vinh Chau strain performed especially well in Lake Bunyampaka water diluted to 50 g L−1. The data presented in this study generate the first useful information for the future inoculation of Artemia in Lake Bunyampaka in Uganda, and hence domestic Artemia production in the country; however, further larger-scale laboratory work, followed by field trials, is still needed.
Highlights
Land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship are the four core factors of production, and apply to the aquaculture sector the world over, Uganda inclusive
This study reports on laboratory tests, and aims to assess the suitability of Lake Bunyampaka saline water to culture Artemia, as a first phase of research before field culture tests can be considered
In our experiments, which fit within a broader study to assess the feasibility of Artemia culture in salt lakes in western Uganda, we observed sublethal and lethal salinity effects in Artemia
Summary
Labour, capital, and entrepreneurship are the four core factors of production, and apply to the aquaculture sector the world over, Uganda inclusive. Despite the increased efforts to boost farmed fish production, hatchery operators still face many problems in larviculture, with most hatcheries reporting a survival rate of below 25% [3]. Most of these mortalities could be attributed to the lack of a suitable larval feed that both meets the nutritional requirements for fish and is affordable for the hatchery operators. Local Artemia production in Uganda is expected to enhance aquaculture production, especially for African catfish production, as it will increase the availability of cysts and/or biomass for use in hatchery operations. Chau (VC) from Vietnam; and (2) by assessing the reproductive performance of the Vinh Chau strain, as it had performed better than the GSL strain in the first experiment
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