Comming soon.
We are embarking on continued evaluation of novel brackish Spirulina as a novel feed supplement for marine fish and shellfish hatcheries. We have been investigating this topic over the past three years supplemented by a small $15k project with the USDA SARE program. Now with another small supplement from the State of Florida Aquaculture Resource Council, we are going to be continuing this work and sharing our results with you live.
Background:
Culture of microalgae in commercial aquaculture hatcheries is vital, costly, and has room to be optimized. We believe one area it can be optimized is utilization of a new novel species isolate, a brackish water Spirulina. The many benefits of Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis spp.), a cyanobacterium with extremely high protein, essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals, as a supplemental feed have been well documented in freshwater culture of fish and shrimp including improved growth, survival, disease and stress resistance, coloration, shell thickness, and reduced cultivation time; with live cultures generating higher nutrition and environmental benefits than dried and preserved cultures.
This project aims to (1) characterize the nutrition and physical properties of this new culture of brackish spirulina and (2) examine its use in commercial marine finfish and shellfish hatchery runs as a supplemental feed and water conditioner. The results of these projects will be developed into two outreach PDFs: the first is an instructional document on how to culture brackish Spirulina and the second is on preliminary impacts we have determined in the culture of marine fish and shellfish. As not to compete with Florida's 7+ commercial microalgae companies, isolates will be provided to microalgae companies for culture and distribution.
