Polyculture of the lined seahorse, Hippocampus erectus Perry, 1810 with two species of macroalgae in aquaria
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Polyculture of the lined seahorse, Hippocampus erectus Perry, 1810 with two species of macroalgae in aquaria XU Yongjian1,2∗ , LIN Junda1 , CHEN Shun1 1 2
Vero Beach Marine Laboratory, Florida Institute of Technology, Vero Beach, FL 32963, USA Key Laboratory of Applied Marine Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
Received 4 September 2008; accepted 4 March 2009 c The Chinese Society of Oceanography and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
Abstract A two-month study was conducted to test the effects of macroalgae on the growth and survivorship of juvenile lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus) in aquaria. Twenty-day old seahorses were cultured in the tanks with green alga Chaetomorpha linum, red alga Gracilaria tikvahiae, green plastic artificial plant (stargrass), and black plastic net, respectively. Increases in wet mass and standard length for the seahorses were significantly higher in the tanks with macroalgae than those without macroalgae. The seahorse survivorships in the two macroalgal treatments were also significantly higher than those of the two treatments without macroalgae. In the treatments with macroalgae, the DO and pH were higher than those without marcoalgae. During the experiment, the color of seahorses was changed to certain extent. In the green background (the treatments with C. linum and stargrass), 24.1%–28.4% of black seahorses decreased over time; whereas in the black (plastic net) or brown (G. tikvahiae) background treatments, 14.1%–16.3% of yellow seahorses decreased over time, for matching that of the background. Furthermore, the survival rate of seahorse was correlation with DO and pH, and strong correlation with standard length, wet mass and CF. Polyculture with macroalgae, survival rates of seahorse were higher than without macroaglae. Key words: Hippocampus erectus, Chaetomorpha linum, Gracilaria tikvahiae, growth rate, survival rate, water quality in aquarium
1 Introduction Seahorses (Hippocampus spp.) are popular used as the Chinese traditional medicine and marine ornamental trades. Their populations in the wild are declining due to overexploitation (Lourie et al., 1999). As a consequence, all seahorse species have been listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 2002, with additional international trade rules in 2004 (CITES, 2004). Fortunately, there has been growing interest in culturing and breeding seahorses in many countries to reduce the pressure on the wild stocks (Wong and Benzie, 2003; Lu et al., 2002; Job et al., 2002; Adams et al., 2001; Woods, 2000a, b; Hilomen-Garcia, 1999). The culture of seahorses is a relatively new industry, and has been focused on the species of Hippocampus kuda (Lin et al., 2006; Job et al., 2002), H. trimaculatus (Sheng et al., 2006), H. abdominalis
(Woods, 2003a, b, c), and H. subelongatus (Payne and Rippingale, 2000). Many problems, particularly the low survivorship of juveniles (Woods, 2000a; Forteeth, 1996; Correa et al., 19
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