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HATCHERYFEED Vol 7 | Issue 1 2019
Update on nutritional requirements of pike perch larvae and fry By Ivar Lund, Najlae El Kertaoui, Covadonga Rodríguez, José A. Pérez, María S. Izquierdo, David Domínguez, Patrick Kestemont, DIVERSIFY project Pike perch (Sander lucioperca) is a freshwater species with high commercial interest in aquaculture and increasing production in recirculation systems. This species was one of five species identified with a great potential for the expansion of the EU aquaculture industry in the recently finished EU project, DIVERSIFY. DIVERSIFY project to elucidate larval and post larval nutritional requirements in phospholipids, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals to improve the quality of hatchery produced fry. Some results are briefly reported here. Larval trials were conducted at Technical University of Denmark, DTU, Institute of Aquatic Sciences, DTU Aqua or at University of Namur, Belgium.
LC-PUFAs and phospholipids
The main bottlenecks and challenges for its intensive larval culture are larval and juvenile cannibalism, the lack of nutritional requirements knowledge and poor larval quality (deformities). Contrary to other freshwater species, pike perch larvae are very sensitive to low levels of dietary essential long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) causing lower growth, high mortality rates and deformities. There is no specific starter feed for this species, so pike perch are fed on diets that were developed for other marine species. A series of trials were conducted in the framework of the
A complete substitution of marine oils with others that do not contain longchain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs), such as most vegetable seed oils, may compromise growth rate, stress resilience and immune-competence in larvae and fry. Moreover, most commercial oils used in fish feeds are in triglyceride form, while fewer oils are in phospholipid form. Phospholipid dietary supplementation has also been demonstrated to improve fish larval performance. Six diets with three phospholipid levels (3.7%, 8.0%, 14%) were tested on 15 dph pike perch larvae for 25 days. Three of these diets had increasing levels of n-3 LC-PUFAs (EPA and DHA), which were supplemented in triglyceride form (Table 1).
Table 1. Ingredient compositions and analysis of 6 experimental diets with different PL and EFA levels.
