Studies on new initial diet for freshwater eel based on food source of natural larvae

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24658171
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: General fisheries
• Research Institution: Kyushu University
• Principal Investigator: MOCHIOKA Noritaka 九州大学, (連合)農学研究科(研究院), 准教授 (40212261)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ウナギ目 / 種苗生産 / 初期餌料 / 尾虫類

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Fisheries Research Agency was successful in closing the Japanese eel life cycle, recently. However, we have not as yet established techniques for mass production of glass eels because of various technical difficulties. Eel larvae rearing depends entirely on a diet made from shark eggs, but natural shark populations cannot support mass production of glass eel quantitatively. Therefore, we must find effective new dietary formulations. The purpose of this study is to clarify species composition of larvacean at waters eel spawning area and to try culture of the offshore larvacean species.
The dominant species in the area was oceanic Fritillaria spp. It was supposed that these discarded houses and fecal pellets were became food sources of the leptocephalus larvae. Based on this result, we tried the culture of these larvacean species. However, it was difficult to obtain the good condition larvacean from the offshore. It is necessary to develop the handling methods for the fragile creature.

Free Research Field

水産増殖学