Aquaculture Research. 2019;00:1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/are | 1 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 | INTRODUCTION Live feeds, including phytoplankton and zooplankton, are suit‐ able starter feed for many aquaculture species. It contains high nutritional components of macro‐ and micronutrients; hence, they are commonly known as ‘living capsules of nutrition’. Live feed organisms being freely swimming in the water, and con‐ tinuosly available to newly hatched fish larvae. Their mobility in water column stimulates a feeding response in larvae due to their jerking movements (Bengtson, 2007). Zooplanktons have recognized as an important natural basic diet for many fish and shrimps. Most fish and prawn species rely on zooplankton during some life stages, and some feed exclusively on zooplankton throughout their life. Live feed is particularly essential for the growth of larval forms in aquaculture, as they more easily in‐ gested and digested (Kinne, 1997), they do not affect the water quality (Watanabe, Oowa, Kitajima, & Fujita, 1978) and contain essential growth factors such as fatty acids and amino acids. Conventional live feeds include rotifers (e.g. Brachionus sp.), co‐ pepods and freshwater cladocerans (e.g. Daphnia sp. and Moina sp.) all of which have a high reproductive potential, ability to at‐ tain a massive rate in short period and capability to survive in adverse conditions (Neelakantan, Naik, Prasad, & Kusuma, 1988). Most of the live feed species provide superior nutritional prey for many aquaculture species (Drillet et al., 2006; Hagiwara, Gallardo, Assavaaree, Kotani, & de Araujo, 2001). Early larval fish Received: 27 June 2019 | Revised: 18 September 2019 | Accepted: 21 September 2019 DOI: 10.1111/are.14357 REVIEW ARTICLE Improvement of nutritional quality of live feed for aquaculture: An overview Divya Kandathil Radhakrishnan 1 | Isamma AkbarAli 1 | Bjorn V. Schmidt 2 | Elizabeth Mary John 1 | Sureshkumar Sivanpillai 1 | Sankar Thazhakot Vasunambesan 1 1 School of Ocean Science and Technology, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, Kochin, India 2 The Key Laboratory of Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China Correspondence Divya Kandathil Radhakrishnan, School of Ocean Science and Technology, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, Panangad, 682 506 Kochin, Kerala, India. Email: divyaarun80@gmail.com Abstract In hatcheries, the adequate supply of live feed has a vital role in feeding fish larvae, fry and fingerlings. Furthermore, the enhancement of the nutritional quality of live feeds is well‐developed techniques in aquaculture. Essential fatty acids (EFA) such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; C22:6 n−3), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; 20:5(n−3) and arachidonic acid (ARA; 20:4(n−6) and amino acids are an essential source of proteins for larval rearing of fish. However, the common practised live feeds used for the pri‐ mary feeding such as rotifers and Artemia are naturally deficient in essential nutrient components. Hence, the improvement of the nutritional quality of live feeds with different oil emulsions and commercial diets, and manipulation of the feed are nec‐ essary for fish production. The production protocols of copepods, Moina and fairy shrimps as live feed are still underdeveloped in hatcheries. The different lipid sources using for the enrichment of Artemia and rotifers are not effective on other live feeds, especially copepods and cladocerans (Moina, Daphnia) and fairy shrimps. This review focuses on the importance of live feeds by the techniques of feed enhancement or enrichment of zooplankton by direct incorporation of nutrients for feeding of early stages of fish. KEYWORDS Artemia, cladocerans, copepod, fairy shrimp, rotifer, zooplankton enrichment