Abstract:
Ornamental fish farms depend on live feeds to maximize the production and most of the farmers are using Anemia naupli as a live feed. Anemia cysts are imported from other countries and are quite expensive hence development of low cost live feed as an alternative to Artemia is done. Moina macrocopa is identified as such species that could be used to reduce the cost of live feeds. Two experiments were conducted over a four month period to investigate possible culture media and its concentrations suitable for culture of Moina macrocopa and find out the most suitable low cost culture medium and its concentration for mass culture of Moina macrocopa. Mineralized cow dung, steamed cow dung, 15 min. boiled chicken manure, 30 min. boiled chicken manure and 1 hr. boiled chicken manure were the investigated low cost culture media which are readily available in Sri Lanka. All media were tested with both with and without 1 x104 cell per 1 ml of Chlorella vulgaris separately. Four different concentrations as 5 g 1-1, 10 g 15 g riand 20 g 1-1 from each media were prepared. Possible culture media can be developed into mass culture were 5 g and 10 g 1-1 of both mineralized chicken manure and steamed chicken manure with and without Chlorella, 10 g 11 and 15 g 1-1 of 1 hr. boiled chicken manure with Chlorella and 20 g 1-1 of 1 hr. boiled chicken manure with and without Chlorella. All those media gave higher yield with Chlorella than without Chlorella. According to the final results, 10 g of mineralized cow dung with Chlorella vulgaris was the best culture medium to obtain highest total count of Moina macrocopa among the tested culture media.
Key words: Moina macrocopa, chicken manure, cow dung, Chlorella vulgaris
