The constraints of high density production of the calanoid copepod Acartia tonsa Dana

Copepods are excellent live feed for marine fish larvae in aquaculture. Culturing copepods at high density is important to increase the total egg yield, but this is still a main challenge. To address this, we conducted experiments to test factors affecting the egg harvest potential of the well studied and aquaculture relevant calanoid Acartia tonsa. A simple model was developed to evaluate the influence of individual egg production, egg predation, crowding effects and tank design on the egg harvest. At high densities from 500 to 3500 ind L−1, there was no difference in food ingestion and egg cannibalism. However, the copepods showed lower food consumption and egg cannibalism compared to the ecologically relevant densities of 20–100 ind L−1. Model calculations demonstrate that maximum egg harvest is the result of a subtle balance between water mixing and tank depth: a shallow, non-mixed tank will allow the eggs to settle and escape cannibalism but at the same time prevent the algal food staying suspended, and full utilization of the egg production potential depends on the fine tuning of these parameters