Biometrical characterization of Artemia franciscana collected from Tuticorin coast, southeast coast of India

In order to introduce Artemia cyst to larvicultural feeding of aquatic animals, biometrical characteristics of Artemia cysts and newly hatched nauplii collected from two different sites viz. natural and algae fed Artemia culture pond in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, India have been studied. The dry and decapsulated cysts diameters, cyst hydration, chorion thickness and total length of newly hatched nauplii collected from wild and algae fed pond were measured under microscope. The results showed that Artemia franciscana cyst size ranged from 216.66 to 223.33 µm size, the hydrated cyst size varied between 232 to 237.66 µm, Chorion thickness 4.6 to7.6 µm, and the naupliar length from 448.66 to 476.66 µm have been observed in the study environment. The smaller sized Artemia cyst and naupli was noticed in algae fed Artemia culture pond while compared to wild collection. The small size of Artemia is suitable for shrimp post larvae, ornamental and marine fish larval stage feeding and it could be a good alternate feed for replacing the imported expensive cysts.