QUESTION:
Does anyone know what eat the phyllosoma in the first larval stage of the Palinurus elephants, the Mediterranean lobster ?
I have studied the Spiny lobster and I am able to hatch the eggs, but the larvae do not eat and they starve to death after 10 days.
Riccardo Costa
Mechanical engineer
Corso Colombo 6/5
17100 Savona
Italy
email anfio@tin.it
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COMMENTS 1:
Date: 14 Oct 1997
From: Jason Goldstei{ <jsgold@neaq.org>
To: Antonella Fiori <anfio@tin.it>, crust-L@VIMS.EDU
Culturing and sustaining phyllosomal larvae has always been a
tremendous challenge. To even attempt larval culture you need a base of good, strong, live foods. Things like Artemia, rotifers, microalgae, ciliates, copepods, etc... These alone require lots of attention and careful planning. So don't get discouraged. It took the Japaneese many trials to culture even just a small handful of the spiny lobsters out there.
Jason S. Goldstein, Research Aquaculturist & Project Coordinator
Lobster Rearing and Research Facility
New England Aquarium
Edgerton Research Laboratory
Central Wharf
Boston, MA 02110
USA
phone: 617.973.5275
fax: 617.723.6207
email: jsgold@neaq.org
webpage: http://www.neaq.org
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COMMENTS 2:
Date: 14 Oct 1997
From: "Mag. Enrique Dupre M." <edupre@SOCOMPA.CECUN.UCN.CL>
To: Antonella Fiori <anfio@tin.it>, crust-l@VIMS.EDU
I have been working with the phyllosoma of the spiny
lobster Jasus frontalis. I have reached the stage IV. We feed all the
stages with a concentration of 2-3/ml nauplii of Artemia (San
Francisco-Bay Brand). All the time the phyllosoma were cultivated
individually in a 250 ml beaker. Every day we changed the water and fed with nauplii. The temperature of the water was 15-18 C.
M.Sc. Enrique Dupre
Lab. Biol. de la Reprod.
Fac. Ciencias del Mar
Universidad Catolica del Norte,
Coquimbo, Chile
Fax: 5651-311287
E-Mail: edupre@socompa.cecun.ucn.cl
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COMMENTS 3:
Date: 15 Oct 1997
From: Jari Sandqvist <jaris@aqvaari.pp.fi>
To: crust-l@VIMS.EDU
I'm interested to get an answer to the question what to feed to the smaller (than Macrobrachium) shrimp fry. Egg yolk?
The smallest fry I have tried was Caridina sp.
Jari
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COMMENTS 4:
Date: 14 Oct 1997
From: "Jack J. O'Brien" <jobrien@jaguar1.usouthal.edu>
To: Jason Goldstei{ <jsgold@neaq.org>
I would like to suggest a potential food source for raising planktotrophic crustacean larvae in the lab. Rhizocephalan barnacles such as Sacculina in Europe, Loxothylacus along the Gulf Coast, and Heterosaccus off of Southern California infect fairly large crabs. These parasitic barnacles release brood after brood, containing 10s of 1,000s of nauplii that do not feed, but rely upon an abundant store of lipid vacuoles. Adult rhizocephalans can easily be maintained at laboratory temperatures (25 C) that will result in release of broods every 6-7 days.
Depending upon one's needs, one could easily maintain 5-10 infected crabs in one aquarium and isolate a crab just before its rhizocephalan releases its brood. (This is easy to detect as the external sac becomes a dark brown.) After the parasite has released its larvae, the crab is returned to the aquarium and the parasite's larvae kept in the isolation bucket. All the latter require is gentle circulation of the water generated by an airstone. No fuss, no muss (i.e. mess) because the larvae require no feeding. They will live about a week at room temperature becoming cyprids in about 3 days. If one keeps them chilled they will live longer. In this manner one would have a continual supply of crustacean larvae that could be used to feed other larvae. Feeding 10 or so "stock" crabs would be much easier than culturing phytoplankton to feed to Artemia nauplii to feed to other crustaceans.
Jack O'Brien