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Title: Live feed enrichment with probiotics: current methods and future perspectives on increasing finfish larviculture success

Author
item Sepulveda Villet, Osvaldo
item Shepherd, Brian
item BINKOWSKI, FRED - Water Institute

Submitted to: World Aquaculture Society Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/28/2014
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Probiotics - active or inactive microorganisms incorporated to animal feeds - are considered a potential alternative to other treatments intended to enhance immune response, growth, or feed efficiency in animal rearing systems. While probiotics are extensively used in livestock practices, their use in aquaculture has not been as prevalent, due to many factors, including a knowledge gap for many species. Of particular interest is the potential of probiotics as an immune-stimulant during early life stages of finfish, as the hatchery and nursery stages are critical to the success of production systems. Currently, the highest periods of mortality during early fish life stages coincide with periods of transitions from yolk consumption to first feeding, weaning of live feeds, and pelleted feed training. There is evidence to suggest that these mortality peaks could be reduced by incorporation of probiotics into larval fish diets. However, there are many challenges to successfully incorporate probiotics into larviculture, mainly due to difficulties in packaging and delivering probiotics into the larval diets. One likely solution consists on the utilization of live feeds as an enrichment device to larval fish. This presentation will discuss past and current methods utilized for probiotic delivery in fish larviculture, and the potential of these techniques on utilizing live feed enrichment in developing culture species, such as the rearing of yellow perch.