Co-feeding schemes affect survival, growth, and development in the larviculture of the Striped cleaner shrimp Lysmata amboinensis (de Mann, 1888)

ABSTRACT Improving larval nutrition is a key aspect to enhancing larval survival and shortening the larval cycle of the cleaner shrimp Lysmata amboinensis, the most traded shrimp species in the marine ornamental industry. A 30-day feeding trial was conducted in order to investigate the effect of the different feeding schemes: AT- Enriched Artemia meta-nauplii + Thalassiosira pseudonana; RAT- Enriched rotifers + enriched Artemia + T. pseudonana; CAT- Apocyclops panamensis copepodites + Enriched Artemia + T. pseudonana; STR- under starvation, upon growth, survival, and development of L. amboinensis larvae. Larvae in the CAT and STR treatments survived for over 3 days, however, total mortality occurred before day 6 in both treatments, whereas in RAT, larvae had an average survival (± SD) of 68.3 ± 12.5% by the end of the trial and those in AT showed a survival of 30.0 ± 5.0%. Development rate was also higher in RAT, where 44.3 ± 13.8% of the larvae were able to reach the zoea X stage by the end of the experiment. Among the larvae in AT, 88.5 ± 10.3% of them were at the zoea IX stage and a small percentage of the larvae were still at the zoea VIII stage on day 30. Growth in AT (2.02 ± 0.33 mm) was lower than in RAT (3.50 ± 0.26 mm). These results suggest that a diverse diet based on a combination of rotifers, Artemia and the microalgae T. pseudonana promotes a satisfactory performance of early to intermediate L. amboinensis zoea stages.