Aquaculture America 2024

February 18 - 21, 2024

San Antonio, Texas

FIRST CONTROLLED SPAWNING FOR CALIFORNIA YELLOWTAIL Seriola dorsalis

Kevin Stuart * and Mark Drawbridge

 

Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute

2595 Ingraham St.

San Diego, CA 92109

kstuart@hswri.org

 



 Here we describe the first documented photothermal  spawning control of California yellowtail ( CYT; Seriola dorsalis ) broodstock .  Over one spawning season we tracked two groups of F1 generation broodstock and recorded  metrics for spawns (egg production, viability), eggs (egg diameter, oil diameter, percent oil volume, hatch rates), and larvae (notochord length at hatch, survival to first feeding).  Spawning Group 1 was comprised of two females (16.0 ± 0.1 kg) and five males (15.4 ± 2.4 ) that were held under ambient light and temperature and produced eggs from March through October .   Spawning Group 2  was also comprised of two females (12.8 ± 3.1 kg) and five males  (12.7  ± 2.2 kg)  that were photothermally shifted to spawn from October through April. 

 The majority of spawning occurred  between  13-14 hr  of daylight and water temperatures between 15 – 21°  C.   Group 1 spawned  47 times , producing 22 million eggs and 486,873 eggs per spawn (Table 1).   Group 2 spawned less (n= 34) and  had lower egg production (20 million eggs), but the eggs per spawn was higher at 604,825 (Table 1) .  E gg quality was similar between both groups.  W e showed that  spawning  of CYT can be photothermally  controlled with no impacts on egg production or egg quality.