Potential Species of Copepods for Marine Finfish Hatchery

Copepods are the most important group of zooplankton which forms the natural food for many fishes and invertebrates. One of the important problems in the marine fish hatchery is the lack of complete balanced larval feed. Copepods, even the newly hatched nauplii are nutritious, rich in PUFA, DHA and EPA, in most desirable ratios (Watanabe et al.,1978; 1983; Sargent1986; Watanabe and Kiron, 1994; Sargent et al., 1997; Stottrup, 2000, 2006), easily digestible (Pederson, 1984; Stottrup, 2000) and rich in antioxidants, astaxanthine, vitamin C, D & E (Van der Meeren, 2003; McKinnon et al., 2003). Copepods if fed during the larval phase, reduces malpigmentation and deformity rates, increases the pigmentation and survival (Bell et al., 1997, Bell, 1998, Stottrup, 2000; Hamre et al., 2005). More than 12000 species copepods are there living in a variety of ecological niches. Most of the early fish larvae are evolutionarily adapted for feeding on copepods than on other animals