Abstract
The intensive culture of characid teleosts for ornamental trade is highly dependent on live feed organisms, particularly Artemia nauplii, to provide nutrition through the larval stage. Live feeds have inherent disadvantages relative to prepared microparticulate diets (MDs), specifically availability, labor and cost. In this research, the dependence of larval Paracheirodon innesi on live Artemia was confirmed via a nutritional trial. Next, digestive system ontogeny was characterized from the onset of exogenous feeding through metamorphosis. P. innesi exhibited an agastric larval stage, as well as low digestive enzyme activity at the onset of exogenous feeding followed by abrupt increases in trypsin, lipase and pepsin activity. Differentiation of the stomach, including gastric gland formation and production of neutral mucopolysaccharides, as well as the onset of pepsin activity, did not occur until 20 days post hatch (dph; 5.24 ± 0.20 mm). This shift from agastric to gastric digestive modes is indicative of a proliferation of digestive capacity and subsequent prey diversity in other fish species exhibiting similar altricial larval stages.
Based on this information, different schedules for weaning from Artemia to a MD were evaluated. For P. innesi fed until 32 dph, weaning beginning at 12 dph and 17 dph resulted in similar survival to live Artemia (mean: 22.0 ± 1.7%), and the MD resulted in the lowest survival (0.8 ± 0.3%). These results indicate that weaning is possible prior to gastric differentiation, potentially resulting in the reduction of Artemia use in the larval culture P. innesi.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Code availability
The statistical analyses and figures herein were created in Program R (RStudio, V. 0.99.903 2015. RStudio: Integrated Development for R. RStudio, Inc., Boston, MA). The custom code is available upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge Noretta Perry of the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, for histological and histochemical processing. In addition, we acknowledge VW Fish Hatcheries Inc, Lakeland, FL, for providing fish for this research.
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TL conceptualized the research, designed and conducted the experiments, conducted associated assays, analyzed resulting data and wrote the manuscript. RY facilitated histological processing, interpreted histological slides, and reviewed/edited the manuscript. SR assisted in conducting the experiments, conducted associated assays, and reviewed/edited the manuscript. MD conceptualized the research, assisted in conducting the experiments, and reviewed/edited the manuscript.
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Lipscomb, T.N., Yanong, R.P., Ramee, S.W. et al. Larval digestive system ontogeny and early weaning in neon tetra Paracheirodon innesi. Fish Physiol Biochem 49, 1241–1255 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10695-023-01254-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10695-023-01254-w