Quantity, motility and fertility of tench Tinca tinca (L.) sperm in relation to LHRH analogue and carp pituitary treatments NICOLAS CAILLE 1,2 , MAREK RODINA 1 , MARTIN KOCOUR 1 , DAVID GELA 1 , MARTIN FLAJS ˇ HANS 1 and OTOMAR LINHART 1, * 1 Joint Laboratory of Genetics, Physiology and Reproduction of Fish, Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, University of South Bohemia, Research Institute of Fish Culture and Hydrobiology, 38925, Vodnany, Czech Republic; 2 University of Nancy 1, INPL, INRA, Laboratory Science Animales, MAN, 34 Rue St Catherine, Nancy, F-5400, France; *Author for correspondence (phone: +420-383-382-402; fax: +420-383-382-396; e-mail: linhart@vurh.jcu.cz) Received 6 November 2004; accepted in revised form 6 May 2005 Key words: Aquaculture, Fish, Hormone, Motility, Reproduction, Sperm, Spermatozoa, Tinca tinca Abstract. The spermiation of tench males was stimulated with Supergestran containing mamma- lian LHRHa lecireline at the following doses: 5, 10, 20 and 40 lg kg )1 b.w.; then with carp pituitary suspension (CPS) at a dose of 2 mg kg )1 b.w. and with a control of saline physiological solution. The following days, meaning 24, 48 and 72 h after injection, sperm was collected to evaluate volume and the number of sperm per male per kg body weight (B.W.) The percentage of motile sperm and velocity of spermatozoa were measured 48 h after hormonal injection, and 72 h after hormonal injection the sperm was evaluated for fertilization and hatching ability. All 42 males in experimental groups were diploid. Live weight did not differ significantly among experimental groups. The strongest stimulation of spermiation was achieved with LHRHa in dosage of 20 and 40 lg kg )1 b.w. and CPS compared to males of the control group and lower dosage of LHRHa. Analysis of variance showed no significant influence of the treatment on the velocity and per- centage of motile spermatozoa. The effect of different treatment on the fertilization capacity (the number of spermatozoa per egg was equilibrated) was significant. Significantly the highest quality of sperm collected 72 h after injection expressed by percentage of fertilization and hatching (62– 65% fertilization and 61–64% hatching rates, respectively) was found for LHRHa in dosage of 20 and 40 lg kg )1 b.w. Significantly the lowest parameters of fertilization and hatching were found for the control group, on the 12% level. Introduction Tench, Tinca tinca (L.) is considered a small cyprinid fresh-water species (marketable size 300 g) and it is spread in Europe except the north of Scotland, northern Scandinavia, Crimea and west part of Balkan peninsula; in Small Asia up to Caucasus Mountain, river Yenisey in Siberia and North-west part of China. (Barusˇ and Oliva 1995; Tong et al. 2002). The tench has been cul- tivated extensively in ponds of Europe since the middle ages. The total pro- duction of tench was 2403 t in 1990 and it slowly grew up to 3880 t in 2001 Aquaculture International (2006) 14:75–87 Ó Springer 2005 DOI 10.1007/s10499-005-9015-0