Nonhatching decapsulated artemia cysts as a replacement to artemia nauplii in juvenile and adult zebrafish culture

Feeding Artemia nauplii as the main nutrition source for zebrafish is a common practice for many research facilities. Culturing live feed can be time-consuming and requires additional equipment to be purchased, maintained, and cleaned. Nonhatching decapsulated Artemia cysts (decaps) are a commercially available product that can be fed directly to fish. Several other ornamental fish species have been successfully cultured using decaps. Replacing Artemia nauplii with decaps could reduce the overall time and costs associated with the operation of a zebrafish facility. The objective of this study was to determine if decaps could be a suitable replacement to Artemia nauplii in juvenile and adult zebrafish culture. Wild-type zebrafish were fed one of three dietary treatments: decaps only, nauplii only, or a standard consisting of nauplii plus a commercially prepared pellet food. Survival, growth (length and weight), and embryo production were analyzed between the treatments. Fish receiving the decap diet demonstrated a significantly higher growth and embryo production when compared to the fish receiving the nauplii-only diet. When comparing the decap fish to the standard fish, no significant difference was found in mean survival, mean weight at 90 days postfertilization, or mean embryo production. It was determined that nonhatching decapsulated Artemia cysts can be used as a suitable replacement to Artemia nauplii in juvenile and adult zebrafish culture.