Successful pikeperch larviculture with co-feeding using Artemia and a dry micro-diet in 2007

Pikeperch (Sander lucioperca L.) aquaculture in Finland mainly involves semi-intensive pond culture of one-summer-old juveniles for stocking purposes. The farming of pikeperch for the consumer market is at an experimental stage. Initiating weaning is one of the most challenging areas in food fish aquaculture, and this is even more difficult with species that have small sized larvae, such as pikeperch. The first-feeding methods for pikeperch are still under development.

The study evaluated different feeding methods in pikeperch larviculture. Feeds consisted of a commercial dry micro-diet and crustacean nauplii (Artemia salina) There were three co-feeding periods of 1-3 weeks with these two diets.

Co-feeding gave better results than a single feed. It was found that 2-3 weeks is a sufficient time for co-feeding, after which a dry micro-diet can be used alone.

Feeding with Artemia nauplii alone gave only satisfactory results, and survival was not as good as in the co-feeding groups. Compared with the dry diet, feeding with Artemia nauplii is also more expensive and fish still need to be weaned to dry feed.

Using a dry micro-diet alone proved inadequate for pikeperch larvae. Larvae fed in this way ate less, grew slower, had a lower survival rate and showed more deformations than larvae in the other groups.

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