Title:

Playing with Sea Monkeys: An Examination of the Use of Decapsulated Artemia as a Means of Improving Current Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Culture Practices

Zebrafish, (Danio rerio) a model vertebrate organism in many fields, has advantages of high fecundity, reproductive capacity, and a fully sequenced genome, enabling breakthroughs in wide array of research. Zebrafish’s small hatching size and poor digestive tract development necessitates the use of live feed requiring separate culture, typically rotifers, during the first feeding days. In addition to being labor intensive and expensive, culturing rotifers requires daily care, relies on a variety of factors, and is unpredictable, leading to frequent population collapses. Artemia nauplii are easier to cultivate but too large for the small gape size of first feeding larvae; decapsulation resolves this by allowing nauplii to hatch earlier and at a smaller size. This study assessed the suitability of decapsulated Artemia (decaps) as a first feed compared to the standard rotifer protocol. 1200 zebrafish two days post hatch (dph) were randomly split among two treatment groups with three replicates (200 fish per 4.5L tank). Larval zebrafish fed decaps performed equal to or significantly better than fish fed rotifers for all study parameters. Feeding decaps as first feed could improve zebrafish larvae performance, simplify care protocols, and potentially reduce operating costs.

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