One of the pathways for the entry of bacteria, both pathogenic and probiotic, into the larvae of fish hatcheries is via live prey. As a preventive measure against infections, live prey may be cultured, supplementing the food with probiotics. Some lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been successfully used in the larviculture. In this study, the nutritional effect of seven terrestrial LAB has been studied regarding the growth of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis. The cultures were carried out without partial renewal of the culture medium, feeding the rotifers on baker’s yeast and adding some of the species of bacteria. In all cases, the addition of the bacteria increased both the specific maximum growth rate and the maximum density obtainable in the cultures. However, the best results were obtained with the addition of Lactococcus casei ssp. casei, Pediococcus acidilactici, or Lactobacillus lactis spp lactis. The rates of growth obtained with the individual or joint addition of these three bacteria were 8–13 times greater than those obtained with the control cultures after 4–5 days’ culture. In this study, a series of kinetic models has been applied (logistic modified—Gompertz, logistic–logistic, and generalised logistic) which describes the experimental data, obtaining a set of parameters of biological significance which facilitate the optimisation of the use of these bacterial strains in the mass production of rotifers

This study was funded by the Projects Production and Application of Probiotics in the Improvement of Larval Survival in Larval Cultures of Sea Fish (1FD97-0044-C03-01/02) from CICYT-FEDER and Improved procedures for flatfish larval rearing through the use of probiotic bacteria (PROBE) from the European Commission (contract no. Q5RS-2000-31457). Dr. J.A. Vázquez wishes to thank CSIC-Diputación Provincial de Pontevedra for a research grant

17 páginas, 5 tablas, 3 figuras

Peer reviewed