Nutritional studies in the seed production of fish - XIV. Effect of nutritional quality of broodstock diets on reproduction of red sea bream.

Abstract

A feeding experiment was conducted to ensure a relationship between quality of the feed and spawning or quality of eggs produced by feeding red sea bream broodstock with various diets with different nutritional quality. In the broodstock fed on the control white fish meal diet the average amount of eggs produced during the experimental period of about 2 months was 100.5 × l04 eggs per fish, and 80.9% of these eggs were buoyant. In the group fed on the low-protein diet without supplemental phosphorus these values were lower than those in the control. The total amount of eggs produced by female fish given the EFA-deficient diet was comparable to that in the control, but proportion of buoyant eggs was the lowest, more than 75 % of eggs produced were deposited. Both values were highest in the group receiving the diet containing cuttlefish meal as a protein source, and moreover these eggs were mostly normal and showed a high rate of hatching, leading to a high productivity of viable larvae available as fish seed. The female broodstock receiving respectively the low-protein, the phosphorus-deficient and the EFA-deficient diets produced eggs significantly low in hatchability and in addition most of the hatched larvae showed deformity in the body and number or position of oil globules in egg yolk. Thus the present results have demonstrated that the reproduction of red sea bream is greatly affected by the nutritional quality of broodstock diets and that cuttlefish meal is superior to white fish meal as a protein source in diets for red sea bream broodstock. © 1984, The Japanese Society of Fisheries Science. All rights reserved.