Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Aquaculture & Fisheries

Live preys’ availability to larval fish is determined on the basis of suitable size, frequently described as gape width/prey size proportion (Dabrowski and Bardeg, 1984). In some cases, larval freshwater fish, like the 4-5 mm total length yellow perch (Kolkovski and Dabrowski, 1998), eat prey smaller than 50-100 μm in width, whereas in the case of the first feeding larval walking catfish (Clarias), the largest size of Artemia nauplii offered, 205-295 μm (4% of fish body length), increased the growth, but compromised survival in comparison to ungraded size nauplii. Nauplii graded into two categories – below 59 μm and 59-183 μm, mesh size net – even when fed in excess, resulted in much lower fish size and survival was 14-28% in comparison to 67% in fish fed with unsieved Artemia (Petkam and Moodie, 2001). Therefore, it is important to readjust the feed particle size (live or inert) to the optimum acceptable size of larval fish. 

NOP 08-A22 (English)