Research Article OPEN ACCESS | Freely available online Page 1 of 5 Volume 2 | Issue 1 | e1000010 Mohamad Saupi Ismail et al. Growth of four generations of Zebra-snout Seahorse, Hippocampus barbouri (Jordan & Richardson, 1908) in captivity Mohamad Saupi Ismail* 1,2 , Vivian Wei Chee Er 2 , Chee Kong Yap 3 1 Fisheries Research Institute (FRI), Batu Maung, 11960 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. 2 Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, 43400 Selangor, Malaysia. 3 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, 43400 Selangor, Malaysia. Abstract: This study was conducted to determine the effect of different generations affecting the size of Hippocampus barbouri in captivity. Seahorse in-house breeding was carried out in Fisheries Research Institute, Penang. Adults H. barbouri were conditioned prior to breeding. All newborn H. barbouri juveniles were transferred to rearing tank once they were born. Growth of H. barbouri juveniles was measured at 10 days interval, up to 60 days. Results showed that different F2 H. barbouri juveniles recorded the smallest size when compared to other generations at day 10 after birth. However, starting from day 50 after birth to day 60 after birth, F2 H. barbouri juveniles recorded the best growth when compared to other generations. Although F3 H. barbouri juveniles had better growth from day 10 of birth until day 40 of birth, the growth was limited after day 50 of birth. F4 and F5 H. barbouri juveniles had similar finding as F3. One of the possible reasons was due to feeding. At initial stage of life, H. barbouri juveniles were fed with newly hatch Artemia nauplii. Starting from day 40, H. barbouri juveniles were weaned over to live Mysis and adult Artemia. Inconsistency supply of live mysids due to monsoon season might affect growth of H. barbouri. Moreover, nutritional content of adult Artemia was another concern. To conclude, culture of H. barbouri in captivity is feasible, where growth of H. barbouri can reach maximum height of 72 mm at day 60 of birth, with the survival rate of more than 43%. Keywords: Seahorse, Hippocampus barbouri, inbreeding, growth, captivity. Citation: Mohamad Saupi Ismail et.al. (2020) Growth of Four Generations of Zebra-snout Seahorse, Hippocampus barbouri (Jordan & Richardson, 1908) in Captivity. Journal of PeerScientist 2(1): e1000010. Received January 21, 2020; Accepted February 18, 2020; Published February 29, 2020. Copyright: © 2020 Mohamad Saupi Ismail et.al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The study was fully funded by the Aquaculture Development Division, Department of Fisheries, Malaysia, through a development grant number P21-30701011-22504-019. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: saupi@rocketmail.com | Phone: +604-6263925 I. INTRODUCTION he wild populations of seahorse wild population is now being threatened by incidental by-catch and the loss of habitats in addition to direct fishing pressure either for the purposes of souvenirs, traditional medicines or aquarium trading activities [1-2]. All seahorse species were listed in the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) [2]. Due to overexploitation or degradation of their natural habitat, seahorse culture has been proposed as one of the solutions to reduce stress on wild seahorse population [3]. Hippocampus barbouri, commonly known as zebra-snout seahorse, is one of the ten seahorse species found in the Malaysia waters and so far, is restricted to Sabah waters [4]. It has been the focus of several research projects, investigating its feeding, breeding, hormones and phylogeography [2]. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classified this species as “vulnerable” [5]. Culture of seahorses becomes more difficult than expected due to lack of information on the culture techniques and methods [6]. Most studies in Malaysia were on conservation and distribution [4,7] while studies on aquaculture topics such as culture techniques, growth hormones and physical conditions were limited [6,8,9]. The objectives of this study were to determine the effect of different generations affecting the size of H. barbouri in captivity and to evaluate the effect of inbreeding in the seahorse. II. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION For all the generations, broodstock were domesticated and inbred. All the generations produced more than 90 H. barbouri juveniles except F4 (Table 1). Number of newborns for each generation was 94.00±55.75, 117.33±67.28, 54.00±13.45 and 99.00±25.51, T