International study on <i>Artemia</i> : 25. Factors determining the nutritional effectiveness of <i>Artemia</i> : the relative impact of chlorinated hydrocarbons and essential fatty acids in San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay <i>Artemia</i>

Different Artemia cyst samples harvested from the San Francisco and the San Pablo Bay regions (California, USA), and suspect because of their poor nutritional performance in fish and crustacean farming, have been analyzed for their chlorinated hydrocarbon and fatty acid content. These results have been correlated with survival, growth, and biomass production of larvae of the marine crustacean Mysidopsis bahia Molenock fed those different Artemia in a standard culture test. Differences in chlorinated hydrocarbon content do not correlate with differences in mysid culture performance. Fatty acid profiles reveal three groups of Artemia batches with high, intermediate, and low levels of the highly unsaturated fatty acid 20:5omega3. The production yield of the mysid larvae could be correlated with the relative level of the 20:5omega3 fatty acid in the Artemia nauplii