Aquaculture America 2023

February 23 - 26, 2023

New Orleans, Louisiana USA

EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF BROODSTOCK DIET ON FLORIDA POMPANO Trachinotus carolinus EGG QUALITY AND LARVAE DEVELOPMENT

Flavie Perron1, Paul S. Wills1, Chris Robinson1, H-Michael Habte-Tsion2, Réjean Tremblay3 and Sahar Mejri1

1Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, Florida Atlantic University (HBOI-FAU), 5600 US 1 North, Fort Pierce, FL 34946, United States

2Cooperative Extension and Aquaculture Research Institute, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5751, United States

3Institut des sciences de la mer, Université du Québec à Rimouski (ISMER-UQAR), 310 Allée des Ursulines, C.P. 3300, Rimouski, QC G5L 3A1, Canada

Email: perronf@fau.edu 



One of the biggest challenges in commercial marine warmwater finfish production is consistent high-quality eggs, to ensure a steady supply of seedstock. A sufficiently nutritious broodstock diet is needed because a maternal diet would greatly influence the survival and development of the offspring. Florida Pompano (Trachinotus carolinus) is a coastal species common to Florida coasts with growing interest for commercial aquaculture production. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of different diets of the Florida Pompano broodstock, such as the control diet (cut-bait shrimp), commercial Breed-M and the green seaweed Ulva-based diet, on the quality of eggs, specifically the fertilization and hatching rate, the growth rate, the use of endogenous nutrients, and the fatty acid profiles of embryos and larvae during the endogenous and exogenous feeding period. The experimental design includes 40 fish evenly distributed in 4 tanks of 2.5 m in diameter (7.8 m3) installed in identical Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS). Broodstock in each tank were fed the same diet 4 times a day at 10 % of the fish body weight. At the time of spawning, after each diet treatment, eggs from each tank were incubated in 4 replicates. Eggs were taken for biochemical analysis and frozen at -80°C from each incubator and fresh samples were placed under the microscope for morphological measurements. It is expected that the addition of Ulva in the feed would provide sufficient nutrient levels for quality eggs and larvae comparable to the experimental diets and produce a similar or higher yield than the control and Breed-M diets.