Captive rearing and breeding technology of anemone fishes

Anemone fishes or clown fishes are the small sized marine ornamental fishes belonging to the family Pomacentridae. The name anemone fish came from its close association with sea anemone and clown fish because of its painted colour, like a clown. Clown fishes fetch high price in the global marine aquarium trade due to its aesthetic value. Captive breeding and seed production technology plays a major role to resolve the green certification criteria. Breeding and seed production of the three species viz. Amphiprion akallopisos, A. percula, and Premnas biaculeatus were standardized. Breeding and seed production of clown fishes have three important components viz, (1) brood stock development (2) the larval rearing and (3) live feed culture. In brood stock development the good quality parent fishes raise up to spawning, in which male and female fishes are selected from a group of clown fishes and fed with shrimp meat/ squid meet/ fish gonads/ clam meat at a rate of 5% of body weight trice a day. In larval rearing the hatchlings are reared up to the advanced juvenile stage (2 to 3cm) for around 45 days. During the larval rearing the juveniles/ larvae are fed with microscopic live feed (rotifers/copepods) according to the mouth size. The live feed culture has two major components such as micro algal culture and zooplankton (rotifer/ copepod culture), and here the zooplanktons are fed with microalgae.

Benefit:

Source : Contact person with Name, Designation e-mail and phone no: Dr. Gladston Y, Scientist, ICAR- CIARI, gladston.y@icar.gov.in, Ph. 9136510268/8108986153