Copepod Culture

Imelda, Joseph and Sarimol, C N and Bhaskaran, Binoy (2015) Copepod Culture. [Teaching Resource]

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Abstract

Copepods represent about 80% of zooplankton in the ocean and are the natural food source for many marine fish larvae. Copepods can adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions and the resting eggs some copepods produced can survive for years. This makes it a suitable group as live feed in aquaculture. Live prey is necessary for fish larvae for many reasons. The larvae of many marine fish require prey about 50–100 μm wide at first feeding (Detwyler and Houde, 1970; Yufera and Pascual, 1984). Fish larvae with very small eggs and little vittelin cannot survive on the yolk available for many days and such larvae are called the altresial larvae. Such larvae need small feed depending on the smaller mouth size. Also for this type of larvae the stomach is not fully developed and they obtain digestive enzymes from the live feed they prey upon. Another advantage of live feed is that fish larvae prefer moving feed rather than inert feed during early stages of development.

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