Abstract:
This study aims to observe survival and production rates of harpacticoid copepods cultured at
different temperatures, salinity levels, and chitosan concentrations. An ovigerous female
harpacticoid copepod Tigriopus sp. was collected in Padina sp. The first experiment was carried
out by culturing the copepods at temperatures of 25'C and 30'C, and salinity levels of 5, 10, 20,
30, 40, 45 ppt for 15 days to study the survival rate. The results showed that the temperatures and
salinity levels significantly affected survival rates of the copepods (P<0.05). The copepods
cultured at the temperature of 25'C and salinity level of 30 ppt had highest a survival rate of
85.04%. At the salinity levels of 5 ppt and 45 ppt, the number of survived copepods was the
lowest. It took 11 days for the copepods to develop from nauplius to adult stages (25?C,30 ppt).
The production rate we designed by two temperature (25'C and 30'C), salinity levels 30 and 35
ppt for culturing of copepods Tigriopus sp. the result confirmed that the optimal condition was
25'C, 30 ppt had maximum population density of Tigriopus sp. 1163+_ 488.74 ind./100 ml after
25 days. The second experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of chitosan concentration
on the production of Tigriopus sp. The ovigerous female copepods was fed with different
chitosan concentrations (0.01, 0.1 and 1%) of microalgae. After 25 days the group with chitosan
concentration of 0.01% yielded the highest production rate (1449.67+_51.42 ind./100 ml). The
chitosan concentration have significant differences effect (P<0.05) compared to the control
group. |
