ADVANCES IN REARING TECHNIQUES AND ANALYSIS OF NUTRITIONAL QUALITY OF TWO MYSID SPECIES PRESENT IN GRAN CANARIA

Preliminary study of mysids populations (Crustacea: Mysidacea) in Gran Canaria and its viability as a live food in aquaculture. Mysidacea order is within the Phylum Arthropoda, subphylum Crustacea, class Malacostraca, superorden Peracarida (Bowman & Abele, 1982). Studies on the relationship between fish and mysids indicate that mysids are one of the most important food for fish, especially in coastal environments, which are in abundance (Murano, 1999). In the aquaculture mysids have proved to be a good quality food for juvenile stages of cuttlefish Sepia officinalis (Dominguez et al. 2001.), and adult seahorse Hippocampus hippocampus (Molina et al, 2007; Otero et al. 2007). This paper aims to explore the feasibility of cultivation of some species of coastal mysids in Gran Canaria. On the east coast of Gran Canaria (27º51´N y 15º23´O), weekly sampling was conducted from August to October 2008. We used visual collect method with a hand net during SCUBA diving, identified three species of mysids: Siriella jaltensis, Paramysis arenosa and Siriella armata. It was determined the rate of survival, growth and production for 30 days in captivity. Different biochemical analyses were performed to compare the nutritional quality of each species.