Abstract

• One of the rotifer species, Brachionus sp. plays an important role in aquaculture as live food for in the early larval stages of many marine and brackish water fish species. It is an excellent first food for larvae because of its relatively smaller size, slow swimming speed, habit of staying suspended in the water column, and ability propagation in captivity at high density and reproductive rate. Microalgae comprise the principal food component for most cultured rotifer. Many species of micro algae may be used for cultivation of the rotifers. In the present study, population growth and reproductive capacity of rotifer Brachionus sp. was evaluated for a period of eight day cultivation under three different feeding diet such as Nannochloropsis sp., Chlorella sp. and Chaetoceros sp.. The feeding density of each algae species was maintained similar as of (4.5x 106 cell/ml). The maximum mean population density of rotifer was observed in Treatment I (Chlorella sp.) (118.00 ± 1.00) compared to Treatment II (Nannochloropsis sp.) (45.00 ± 1.73) and Treatment III (Chaetoceros sp.) (42.00 ± 1.00) At the eight day of culture, the number of egg bearing rotifers was significantly highest (p <0.05) in those fed on (Chlorella sp.) compared to Treatment II (Nannochloropsis sp.) and Treatment III (Chaetoceros sp.). According to the present results, the marine Chlorella sp. is the best food for rotifers for the mass production.