Feeding of Artemia nauplii

Posted 60 days ago, on Nov 06 2008
Adam Petrie

For feeding Artemia nauplii to Zebrafish, are there any guidelines on a specific amount to feed (i.e. dry weight or nauplii per fish) or is it based more on observation (i.e. the fish eat about this much in X minutes)?

Thanks, Adam

2 Comments:

  • Comment added 48 days ago, on: Nov 19 2008
    Joe Sillitti

    Hey Adam,

     Sorry it has taken me a while to respond and I won't have much more to add.  I agree with Chris, at my old facilities and most that I work with now the fish are fed to satiation.  I remember that we would have to adjust the amount of decapsulated brine every few weeks based on the observation of left over feed in the tanks.  This could change based on fish being used how many tanks of young fish etc.

     There was an estimate we would follow when starting new rooms to feed 2 milliliters of rinsed brine per 2 liter tank of adults.  We generally had a stocking density of 10 fish per liter.  Not scientific at all but based on observation.  This was done using a calibrated pipette, now it is the squeeze bottle method so it could be much more variable.

    Thanks,  Joe


  • Comment added 60 days ago, on: Nov 07 2008
    Christian Lawrence

    Hey Adam,  Typically Artemia are fed to satiation.   We have found that weight gain under a 2x daily (as much as they will eat in 10 minutes) is better than 4-5 x per day smaller feedings, with pellet included in 2 of the 5 feedings.

    You could determine dry weight of cysts and feed by percent body weight but isn't that easy to do.  But it is possible, and it can give you a standard to work from.  

    It is easier to feed to satiation, however.  Crudely, you can tell is you're going beyond (overfeeding) by the amount of uneaten nauplii in the tanks.  The "right" amount is when the fish look like their guts are full after feeding events and there is no or little uneaten nauplii afterwards.    You could in practice find this amount, and then correlate it to the dry weight of nauplii it takes to get you there to determine a percent body weight.   For adults, my guess is that it would be somewhere between 5 and 10%, but it is difficult to say for sure.  That would be interesting, and useful data to have, actually.