Influence of fish meal, yeast and maize on the growth and survival of freshwater zooplankton Daphnia Magna

Abstract

Culturing the zooplankton, Daphnia, in the local environment is quite challenging due to the low survival and slow growth rate. The use of locally available raw materials as their substrate may increase the survival and the growth rate of Daphnia. Therefore, this study was carried out to evaluate the effect of locally available raw materials in three different feed combinations to nourish Daphnia magna, namely; substrate 1 prepared by combining maize and yeast , substrate 2 with fish meal, and yeast, and substrate 3 with cow dung. Additionally, the dried yeast alone was used to feed D. magna as the control treatment. Each treatment and control had three replicates in which 1000 D. magna were stocked in each 10 l plastic container and fed with the same rate of substrate 1.8 mg/10 ml. The results showed that the specific growth rate of D. magna was satisfactory in both substrate 1(7.74±1.64%) and 2 (7.705±0.71 %). However, substrate 2 was recorded with significantly higher growth performance than that nourished by substrate 1. Interestingly, the propagation (survival) and growth performance of D. magna fed by both substrate 1 and 2 were better than that fed by control substrate. Therefore, the study demonstrated that the substrate 1 and 2 resulted in the best propagation and growth performance of D. magna. Furthermore, D. magna which were cultured under the substrate of fishmeal and yeast can be used to increase the survival of fish larvae.