Abstract:
Culturing the zooplankton, Daphnia, in the local environment is quite challenging due to the low survival and slow
growth rate. The use of locally available raw materials as their
substrate may increase the survival and the growth rate of Daphnia.
Therefore, this study was carried out to evaluate the effect of locally
available raw materials in three different feed combinations to
nourish Daphnia magna, namely; substrate 1 prepared by combining
maize and yeast , substrate 2 with fish meal, and yeast, and substrate
3 with cow dung. Additionally, the dried yeast alone was used
to feed D. magna as the control treatment. Each treatment and
control had three replicates in which 1000 D. magna were stocked
in each 10 l plastic container and fed with the same rate of substrate
1.8 mg/10 ml. The results showed that the specific growth rate
of D. magna was satisfactory in both substrate 1(7.74±1.64%)
and 2 (7.705±0.71 %). However, substrate 2 was recorded with
significantly higher growth performance than that nourished by
substrate 1. Interestingly, the propagation (survival) and growth
performance of D. magna fed by both substrate 1 and 2 were better
than that fed by control substrate. Therefore, the study demonstrated
that the substrate 1 and 2 resulted in the best propagation and
growth performance of D. magna. Furthermore, D. magna which
were cultured under the substrate of fishmeal and yeast can be used
to increase the survival of fish larvae.
