A Review on n-3 HUFA and Live Food Organism for Marine Fish Larvae Nutrition

Marine fish farm industries face ongoing challenges due to a lack of quality seed, a low survival rate and a slow growth rate of marine fish larvae. One of the most sensitive problems is a nutritionally balanced quality feed for rearing these larval fish at the first feeding stage. Many studies have reported high requirements of n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids, mainly eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) for proper development, which have also been reported to increase the survival and growth status of larval fish. Marine fish larvae have difficulties accepting artificial feed at their weaning stage, so live food plays a vital role in the rearing process. Artemia is one of the most commonly used live food organisms in marine fish larvae production systems. However, they are deficient in EPA and DHA, which are most critical for larval development. Recent advancements in live food production systems have developed several techniques of bio-encapsulation and enrichment of nutrients in live food. But the instability of DHA and the high cost of enrichment procedures remain-bottlenecks for supplying proper nutrients through live food. This short review emphasizes challenges in marine fish larvae culture in terms of HUFAs nutrition with a comparative study on DHA requirements of marine larval fish and its availability in live food organism Artemia. We also highlighted several factors affecting DHA enrichment process and its degradation following enrichment procedures.