Growth and Survival of Larval Red Sea Bream Pagrus major and Japanese Flounder Paralichthys olivaceus Fed Microbound Diets

To establish the practical use of microbound diets (MBD) for larval fish in mass seedling production, rearing experiments of larval red sea bream, Pagrus major , and Japanese flounder, Paralichthys olivaeeus , were conducted. A mixture of various protein sources was used, and dietary amino acid patterns were approximated to those of larval whole body protein. Two thousand red sea bream larvae and 1,000 Japanese flounder larvae, all 10 days old, were placed in 100 liter tanks with running sea water under ambient water temperature, which ranged from 18 to 20C. The particle size of MBD was 125 μm at the beginning of the experiment and adjusted as fish size increased thereafter. Employing MBD together with a small amount of live food could sustain the growth and survival of larval red sea bream and Japanese flounder. Thus, data from the present study indicates that substitution of artificial feeds for live foods is possible for larval fish production, although improvements in MBD diets may be necessary before they are adequate for large scale seedling production.