Are Acartia tonsa cold stored eggs a suitable food source for the marine ornamental species Amphiprion polymnus? A feeding study.

Copepods are the natural food items for marine fish larvae but are still difficult to be cultured on a continuous basis. Therefore, suitable storage techniques for copepod subitaneous eggs are of great interest. Cold stored copepod embryos still develop and retain a physiological activity during the cold storage period. As a consequence their nutritional quality may change over the time of storage with these changes possibly affecting both eggs viability and larval fish survival and development. 33 In this study, the clownfish Amphiprion polymnus, was used as an experimental model to compare, for the first time, the effects of diets based on enriched rotifers and Artemia (control), Acartia tonsa copepods of a continuous culture and A. tonsa originated from 6 months cold stored eggs. The 36 effects of the different diets were tested through morphometric, molecular and biochemical approach. This study demonstrated that after a 6 months cold storage period the quality of copepods obtained from those eggs was suboptimal for A. polymnus larval rearing. In fact, larvae fed those copepods showed lower growth and survival performances respect to the other experimental groups.