Volume 18 Issue 5 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
LIVE FEEDS
BET TER BREEDING
Norwegian company brings cool concept to live feed
BY MATT JONES
s the arms race to develop more efficient and effective live feeds for hatchery applications continues Norway’s Planktonic AS has developed a unique approach which they say could be a game-changer for the industry. The process includes a method for harvesting large amounts of plankton from the ocean, which is then cryopreserved. The plankton is packed in sacks of 600g, corresponding to about 30 million plankton individuals, and these are stored in thermos flasks with liquid
A
A size comparison between juvenile lumpfish from the same egg batch – the ones on the left were fed traditional dry starter feed, the larger ones on the right were fed live Cryo-plankton.
nitrogen. When this feed is to be used, it is thawed in seawater, and the plankton then becomes live again and therefore constitutes a natural feed for the juvenile fish. THE RIGHT STUFF
“The right marine fatty acids in the earliest live stages are crucial in order to release the potential for growth in marine fish,” says Rune Husby, CEO of Planktonic AS. “Natural zooplankton contains these fatty acids and is such a superior feed to any other feed type out there. This is well documented in literature and publications, but
there has been no effective way of presenting such a feed to marine hatcheries that made industrial sense. Until now.” Husby says that to utilize their live feed, a hatchery manager need only throw the cryopreserved nauplii into sea water and within eight hours they are ready for use. A much simpler, less expensive and less time consuming process, Husby says, than cultivating a batch of rotifers or hatching artemia cysts or cultivating algae for feed.
he most effective method of gender manipulation to create all-female stocks of southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma) uses a combination of UV irradiation to denature genetic input from male southern flounder prior to egg activation, followed by a pressure shock.
continued on page 8 Photos: Elizabeth Silvy
Planktonic AS utilizes cryo-preservation techniques to provide live zooplankton for marine hatcheries.
US researchers identify effective method of gender manipulation for southern flounder T
PROFILE NORTHERN DIVINE
Coho to Go… ustin Henry thinks he’s got some pretty good fish eggs for sale. Northern Divine Aquafarms produces certified organic, fertilized, female monosex, coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) eggs. “I think we are the only company in the world doing this,” says Henry, the General Manager of Northern Divine, based in Sechelt, just north of Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Formerly called Target Marine, the company began as an integrated coho aquaculture facility with hatchery and net pen-growout systems in 1986. The current owners bought the company in 1994.
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THIRTY YEARS OF BREEDING
Broodstock was initially sourced over a period of three years from the Kitimat River in Northern BC and has been selectively bred for growth, disease
continued on page 9
Canadian company produces all-female coho eggs for shipment world-wide
Graduate student Elizabeth Silvy prepares a male flounder for hormone injection.
The process was described in Manipulation of Gender in Southern Flounder to improve stock enhancement programs and or Manipulation of gender in southern flounder to improve culture, authored by Elizabeth Silvy, a student at Texas A&M University, continued in "Better Breeding" feature on page 21
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