Retinomotor responses of juvenile bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus

SUMMARY: In bluefin tuna culture, a high mortality of juveniles is caused by bumping into the tank and net-pen walls at dawn. This bumping can possibly be attributed to visually disoriented behavior of the fish. To examine this possibility, the authors carried out retinomotor response experiments with juvenile bluefin tuna (50.7–96.8 mm total length, at which they were transferred from a indoor tank to a sea net-pen) and measured ambient light intensity at the culture site at dawn. The light intensity at which the transition from scotopic to photopic vision takes place was 7.52 lx and the time taken by the transition was 15 min. At dawn, the ambient light intensity rapidly increased from scotopic light intensity level and attained photopic light intensity level in 10 min. This incompatibility of the retinal adaptation with the change in the ambient light intensity could cause the visual disorientation of the fish. It is therefore possible that the visually disoriented juveniles cannot control their high power swimming and thus bump into the walls at dawn.