Effect of boodstock nutrition on reproductive performance of clownfish Amphiprion sp

The marine ornamental fish trade moves nearly 20-25 million live fish worldwide per year. Nearly 90% of these are wild caught from the pristine coral reef environments. The demand for fishes is on the rise and it has led to depletion of natural fish stocks around the globe. Clown fishes (Amphipirion sp.) are among the most popular marine ornamental fish, and reliance on the natural reefs has led to depletion of stocks. The efforts to reduce dependence of wild stocks as well as to ensure market sustainability spurred research into captive breeding and several researchers have successfully bred many species of clown fish. Breeding of clown fish is important to reduce the dependence on wild caught. Broodstock nutrition is one of the major hurdles faced by breeders, an improvement in broodstock nutrition improve the brood quality. Traditionally fresh natural diets are used for feed broodstock development. The fresh diets such as squid (38%), cuttlefish (50%), bivalve meat, krill (10%) and other small crustaceans, fish gonads, polychaetes, other worms are popular maturation diets. In this study conducted at Mandapam Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture (TNJFU). With several diets, a combination fresh fish with clam was observed to be the best for gonadal maturation of A. sebae.