Abstract
Tank wall collision is one of the major causes of mortality during the early-stage rearing of Pacific bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis (PBT). Therefore, to design a rearing environment that meets the needs of juvenile PBT, it is important to gather information about their swimming capabilities. We conducted experiments to examine the relative critical swimming speed (RCSS) and maximum sustainable swimming speed (MSSS) of early-stage PBT. The fish were kept in 3-tonne tanks and fed on artificial pellets every 2 h from dusk to dawn. We conducted two sets of experiments to measure swimming speed; the fish were introduced one at a time into a water funnel, and the water current velocity was gradually increased over time to estimate RCSS, or the water current was kept at a constant velocity to estimate MSSS. We measured the RCSS of 72 PBT juveniles (24–29 days after hatching (DAH); standard length (SL), 15.0 ± 2.3 mm) and the MSSS of 32 PBT juveniles (28–37 DAH; SL, 20.0 ± 5.1 mm) in the laboratory. The RCSS ranged from 4.7 to 20.3 SL/s (average, 12.4 ± 3.3 SL/s), and the MSSS was estimated to be approximately 4 SL/s. We speculate that introducing a water current in the rearing tank of no more than 4 SL/s could positively affect the survival of juvenile PBT.
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Abbreviations
- PBT:
-
Pacific bluefin tuna
- SL:
-
Standard length
- CSS:
-
Critical swimming speed
- RCSS:
-
Relative critical swimming speed
- MSSS:
-
Maximum sustainable swimming speed
- DAH:
-
Days after hatching
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant to F.S.S. from the Global COE program from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, Sports and Technology (International Education and Research Center for Aquaculture Science of Bluefin Tuna and Other Cultured Fish), Japan. The authors thank the staff of the Amami Experiment Station and the Shirahama Station Fish Nursery Center for their support during our experiments.
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de la S. Sabate, F., Nakagawa, Y., Nasu, T. et al. Critical swimming speed and maximum sustainable swimming speed of juvenile Pacific bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis . Aquacult Int 21, 177–181 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-012-9543-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-012-9543-3