ABSTRACT Objective The Hogfish Lachnolaimus maximus is a species that is new to aquaculture. They are naturally found on the western side of the Atlantic ocean, mostly in tropical waters. Fishing pressure has led to population declines across most of their range in North America. The development and refinement of aquaculture protocols for early juvenile grow-out of Hogfish would lead to a better understanding of the feasibility of commercial production and stock enhancement. Methods Two dietetics experiments were conducted to evaluate the commercially available dry diets (brands: Otohime and Purina AquaMax) and associated feeding rates for juvenile Hogfish to determine a feeding regime for early grow-out of this new aquaculture species. The mean Hogfish starting weights for two grow-out experiments were 0.28 ± 0.13 g (mean ± standard deviation) and 1.31 ± 0.88 g, respectively. The first experiment compared two commercially available diets that were fed at 6% body weight (BW)/d. A second experiment evaluated a single diet at feeding rates of 6% and 10% BW/d using the best performing diet from the first experiment. Results In the first experiment, significantly different values for final total length (4.41 ± 0.92 cm vs. 4.05 ± 0.77 cm mean ± standard deviation) were observed between the diets. Weights increased from 0.28 ± 0.13 g to 1.52 ± 1.06 g versus 1.13 ± 0.64 g but did not differ significantly between the diets. Survival between the fish that were fed with the two diets did not differ significantly at 68.5 ± 12.1% versus 56.0 ± 21.8%. In the second experiment, there were no significant differences in mean total length or weight and the fish grew from 1.31 ± 0.88 g to 5.70 ± 4.21 g. The survival rate of the fish that were fed 6% or 10% BW/d was identical (87.5%), indicating that a ration of 6% BW/d was sufficient. Conclusions Hogfish were able to be reared on commercially available diets from starting weights that were less than 0.5 g to final weights that were greater than 5 g, with survival rates that are promising for intensive production. This is the first published research evaluating feeding commercially available diets to early juvenile Hogfish.
Shopnitz et al. (Thu,) studied this question.