Review of the present knowledge of rearing whitefish (Coregonidae) larvae

Intensive fishing of whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) and a survival rate of the early stages of the fry that is generally too low lead, at present, to the whitefish stocks not being able to utilize fully the natural food resources now produced many times in excess of the requirements by the eutrophication of lakes.Feeding experiments in aquaria have, for several years, shown very impressively, that there are two main reasons for the high mortality of the larvae in the natural environment: high sensitivity to even a short-term lack of food and specific food requirements — the necessity for the larvae to feed on the juvenile stages of certain zooplanktonic crustaceans.Artificial breeding of whitefish eggs in cold water at 1°C caused a delay in hatching of about 8 weeks compared with natural hatching, thus allowing the release of the larvae at a time when the density of zooplankton is about ten times higher and mainly juvenile stages of crustaceans needed by the whitefish larvae are present. Hence, this is one proven way of improving the survival rate of whitefish larvae in the natural environment.Young fish, after metamorphosis, have less specialized food requirements than the larval stage and can even be fed adequately with dry food. In rearing the larvae, natural zooplankton can be replaced by the nauplii of the brine shrimp, Artemia salina. Larvae have not yet been reared on dry food or even on slowly frozen zooplankton or Artemia, but Artemia nauplii shock-frozen in liquid nitrogen (at ?196°C) were found to be as acceptable as living ones and allowed metamorphosis of the larvae to take place. The substance, assumed to be present in the living Artemia, which was lost on slow-freezing but retained after shock-freezing and was shown to be essential to the whitefish larvae, was insoluble in water. Biochemical investigation and identification of this substance are urgently required in order to synthesize an artificial complete food for whitefish larvae.As long as this artificial food is not available, attention will have to be focussed on rearing the larvae in natural ponds where the specific and essential zooplankton can be encouraged.