Background:
Endangered golden mahseer, a flagship species in Indian coldwater fisheries, needs rehabilitation and conservation measures for its sustainability. For this, mass-scale seed production using captive broodstock is imperative. However, the breeding performance of captive-raised brooders is relatively less in terms of gamete quality, fertilization and batching rates, larval quality, survival and fitness. The development of an efficient broodstock feed, which is currently lacking, is the most feasible approach for addressing this issue:
Technology details:
"DCFR-MAHA-Brood" is an exclusive mahseer brooder feed, adequately rich in essential nutrients and pigments for gonadal development and maturation. The said brooder feed facilitates year-round multiple breeding of golden mahseer with _improved spawning response, fecundity (by 10 -15%), egg quality (egg size 2.54 Vs 2.73 mm, carotenoid content, etc), sperm quality & quantity (spermatocrit and sperm count by 5 10% and sperm viability by 10%; while reduced abnormalities in the sperm by 3%), fertilization (by 12 -18%) and hatching (by 4-5%) rates, larval quality (improved growth by 20-22%, survival by 7- 10%, and fitness (CTmax by 0.8 to 1.0 °C). DCFR-MAHA Brood enables the production of robust and healthy mahseer stocking material (seed) for replenishing its population in the natural water bodies through ranching and rehabilitation/conservation. This will bring prospects in sport fisheries and mahseer based ecotourism ultimately resulting in socioeconomic upliftment of the local people.