An artificial diet for larval rabbitfish Siganus guttatus Bloch.

Abstract

A 21-day feeding trial was conducted to determine growth, survival and metamorphosis of larval rabbitfish (Siganus guttatus ) fed artificial diets containing approximately 40, 45, 50 and 55% crude protein. Artemia nauplii served as the control feed. Larvae performed equally well on all artificial diets with specific growth rate, % metamorphosis and % survival of 7.80-8.35, 95.2-97.9% and 59.9-70.3%, respectively. In contrast, Artemia -fed larvae exhibited poor growth (5.03) and low survival (51%) possibly due to inadequate feeding level or poor nutritional quality of Artemia . Hence, a diet with 40% protein and estimated energy content of 3,971 kcal kg super(-1) may be used with satisfactory results during hatchery production of rabbitfish.