ROTIMAC FOR ROTIFER CULTURE

Date: 05 Feb 1998

From: Dennis Schloss <dschloss@hswri.org>

To: aqua-l@killick.ifmt.nf.ca

QUESTION:

Is anyone culturing rotifers using "Rotimac," an artificial diet available from Aquafauna Biomarine? If so, how is the reproduction rate? What conditions are best (pH, salinity, temperature, density, feeding regime)?

Thanks in advance for any response.

Dennis Schloss

Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute

Marine Fish Hatchery

4200 Garfield St.

Carlsbad, CA 92008

dschloss@hswri.org

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COMMENTS 1:

On culturing of Rotifers I am not familiar with ROTIMAC by AFBM (a good company) but we are the manufacturers of CULTURE SELCO and if you wish I would be happy to send you a USER's GUIDE and some other papers that should help you.

howard w. newman, BShrimp@aol.com

INVE AQUACULTURE, Inc.

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COMMENTS 2:

Here is the abstract of a poster paper I am presenting at the WAS Las

Vegas convention. I had good results with the RotiMac product and would like to compare it to other commercially available dry diets.

Regards,

Phil Boeing, p.boeing@worldnet.att.net

AquaTech Seafoods

1235 South Loop 4

Buda, TX 78610

512-312-1245 Fax 295-7013

THE CULTURE OF Brachionus plicatilis WITH A Schizochytrium sp. BASED COMMERCIAL DRY DIET

Phil Boeing*, Brandi Short, Debbie Miller, and John Woiton

AquaTech Seafoods

1235 South Loop 4

Buda, Texas 78610, USA

The ratio of algae culture volume to rotifer culture volume has long ago stimulated the investigation of alternative feeding strategies for

rotifer culture. The cost and unreliability of live mass algae culture

has further prompted the development of alternative rotifer feeds.

Spray dried algae such as Nannochloropsis salina and Tetraselmis salina have shown some biological promise for live algae substitution.

Schizochytrium sp., a heterotrophically grown algae with a high HUFA content has recently been included as a base for a commercial dry diet for rotifers known as RotiMac.

The present study investigated the growth rates of Brachionus plicatilis fed 100% Tetraselmis chui (PLY 429) , 100% RotiMac, or 15% T. chui-85% RotiMac combination. Identical growing conditions and dry weight equivalents were maintained for the three groups during the 18 day trial. Rotifers were fed 1.2 ug rotifer-1 twice per day at 12 hour intervals. The highest growth rate was shown by rotifers fed 100% Tetraselmis chui which exibited an instantaneous growth rate (K) of 0.17. Rotifers fed 85% RotiMac grew at 87% of the highest growth group while the 100% RotiMac fed rotifers grew at 73% of the 100% live algae group.

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