Different dietary effects on growth and reproduction of freshwater zooplankton Ceriodaphnia cornuta (Sars, 1885) and its potential use in Pangasius nasutus larval rearing

In an aquatic habitat, zooplankton organisms are an extremely valuable resource for aquaculture purposes. Potential zooplankton species (Ceriodaphnia cornuta) have been further explored to evaluate their applicability to fed fish larvae in freshwater aquaculture. There is a need to find more options other than Artemia as live food options in freshwater hatcheries. Thus, this study was conducted by enriching Ceriodaphnia cornuta with rice bran (F1), soybean meal (F2), Chlorella vulgaris (F3), Spirulina sp. (F4), and unenriched C. cornuta (control). The result showed that the best growth performance of C. cornuta occurred when enriched with an F1 and F2 compared to F3 and F4. Meanwhile, the best initial age of reproduction occurred when enriched with F1+F3 and F3+F4 (3.67 ± 0.57 days and 3.66 ± 1.15 days). Besides, the gross and net reproduction rate of C. cornuta differed withother enrichments where F1+F3 has the highest rates (67.66 ± 1.52 offspring/female and 56.32 ± 0.90 offspring/female) compared to other treatments. The generation time for C. cornuta was shorter when enriched with F2 (7.11 ± 0.88 days) and longer when enriched with F1+F3 (11.23 ± 0.66 days). Other than that, the best growth performance of P. nasutus larvae occurs when fed with F1+F3. This study indicates that F1+F3 constitutes better sources of enrichment to improve the growth performance and life history of zooplankton.