Author's personal copy Short communication Experimental studies on the effect of food in early larvae of the cleaner shrimp Lysmata amboinensis (De Mann, 1888) (Decapoda: Caridea: Hippolytidae) Luís Cunha a, ⁎ , Maite Mascaro b , Xavier Chiapa b , Ana Costa a,c , Nuno Simoes b a Departamento de Biologia, Universidade dos Açores, R. Mãe de Deus, Apt 1422, 9501-855 Ponta Delgada, Portugal b Unidad Multidisciplinaria de Docencia e Investigación - Sisal, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, (UMDI-Sisal, FC, UNAM), México c CIBIO — Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Portugal Received 1 November 2007; received in revised form 11 February 2008; accepted 13 February 2008 Abstract Identifying appropriate larval husbandry is a key to improve larval quality and shorten duration of larval stages, and culture costs of ornamental cleaner shrimps Lysmata amboinensis. Several feeding and zootechnical experiments were conducted under laboratory conditions to test the effect of food during the first day posthatch, the effect of feeding with microalgae on larval digestion after 24 h posthatch, the effect of enriched rotifers upon survival and the combined effect of stocking density and food concentration on growth and survival of young larvae. For the first time, oxygen consumption values, trypsin-like activity and metabolite content (protein and triacylglycerols) were determined for L. amboinensis early stage larvae. When starved during the first day of life, L. amboinensis larvae had the same oxygen consumption as fed larvae, indicating that food ingestion is not crucial during that period. Nevertheless, energy reserves such as TAG were significantly lower in 24 h starved larvae when compared with fed larvae indicating facultative primary lecitotrophy. Trypsin-like activity of digestive enzymes (U mg prot - 1 ) was low when compared with other decapod larvae. Larvae fed with Tetraselmis chuii showed a significant increase in enzyme activity after 24 h. Present results showed that enriched rotifers result in higher larval survival during the first days of life when compared with larvae fed with non-enriched rotifers and that survival is not dependent on the relation between larval density and food concentration. In addition, stocking densities of 10 larvae ml - 1 showed higher survival compared to that obtained at the stocking density of 20 larvae ml - 1 . © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Larval physiology; Larviculture; Lysmata amboinensis; Cleaner shrimp; Marine ornamentals 1. Introduction In contrast to freshwater species, most commercialized marine ornamentals come directly from natural systems, principally from coral reefs (Tlusty, 2002; Wabnitz et al., 2003). The exploitation pressure is more pronounced in Indo-Pacific coral reefs, where countries such as Philippines and Indonesia have the highest rates of exploitation (Wabnitz et al., 2003). Target species are mainly fish and corals, but recently more invertebrates are being commercialized, especially anemones and cleaner shrimps, mostly from the genus Lysmata. In order to release some of the exploitation pressure upon natural systems, aquaculture of marine ornamentals has been suggested as a possible solution (Rubec, 1988; Kaiser et al., 1997; Calado, 2006; Lecchini et al., 2006). However, aquaculture of ornamentals can only be profitable through a combination of science and technology as to optimize techniques for culture (Wabnitz et al., 2003). Despite the expo- nential growth of the marine ornamental market, very few species are presently cultured (Calado et al., 2003; Calado, 2006). Whilst much progress in this field has been made during last years (Penha-Lopes et al., 2005; Rhyne et al., 2005; Espinosa and Allam, 2006; Olivotto et al., 2006; Figueiredo and Narciso, 2006; Penha-Lopes et al., 2006; Watson and Hill, 2006; Calado et al., Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Aquaculture 277 (2008) 117 – 123 www.elsevier.com/locate/aqua-online ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 296 650 102x1796; fax: +351 296 650 100. E-mail address: luisnevescunha@gmail.com (L. Cunha). 0044-8486/$ - see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.aquaculture.2008.02.014