Evaluation of Microalgal Diet to Culture Adult Oithona oculata Farran (Copepoda, Cyclopoida)

While copepods are important prey for many wild marine fish larvae and preferred as a live feed culturing larval fish, their low productivity the costs associated with them typically limit use food source in all but experimental situations. In series of experiments four readily commercially available microalgae (Thalassiosira weissflogii Grunow, Rhodomonas salina Wislouch, Tetraselmis suecica Kylin Butch, Isochrysis galbana Parke), we determine which them, when exclusively fed to commonly occurring copepod, Oithona oculata, over 15-day period, results greatest copepod survival egg production rates. We posit that species might be an ideal candidate taxa commercial-scale culture microalga is them.