Larval rearing of Mithraculus sculptus (Lamarck, 1818) in captivity

Mourinho, Tiago Miguel Dionísio

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/3528

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Authors

Mourinho, Tiago Miguel Dionísio

Advisor(s)

Cristo, Margarida

Salabert, Joana

Abstract(s)

The exponential growth of marine aquarium trade leads to some environmental problems in some of the most important reefs in the world. The capture of some reef inhabitants to fulfill the aquarium trade requirements has resulted in some negative impacts in the reefs ecology. Aquaculture is pointed as the best solution to decrease the reef animal‟s captures and allow the normal continuity of the aquarium trade. However, the large scale production of coral reef specimens is actually beginning. It will take some more years to replace the fisheries for aquaculture. Mithraculus sculptus is a decapod that can be found in shallow waters from Florida to Brazil. It is a very useful crab due to its feeding habits; it eats valonia sp. algae, an aquarium pest. The present work tested three different tanks, in order to determine the most appropriate tank to larval rearing. The one that showed better results was described by Calado et al., (2003), it is a cylindrico-conical tank with 10 liters capacity. Considering the importance of feeding in larval stages, three different food concentrations were tested. The best result was reached for 7 nauplii mL-1 trial. Nutrition is also very important so, larvae were cultured with three different types of food: newly hatched Artemia sp., enriched Artemia sp. and a mix of them (newly-hatched in the first 8 days of the experiment and enriched Artemiasp from then until the end). To produce M. sculptus in large scale, more investigation studies are needed to better understand larvae requirements. New studies should focuses in new tanks and settlement tables, in order to decrease larval handling and increase larval settlement.