SBIR Phase II: Development of Design and Operational Criteria of Continuous Culture Hatchery Techniques for the Production of Brachionus rotundiformis (s-type) rotifers

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的总体目标是商业化一个强大的，连续培养生产系统的轮虫（圆形臂尾轮虫; s型），主要活饲料来源的海洋仔鱼。美国海水养殖业扩张的一个主要瓶颈仍然是缺乏商业活饲料生产技术来支持养殖业。特别是对于轮虫养殖，存在有限的标准化设计和操作标准的连续培养方法，可以促进提高生产力和供应的一致性。无法以具有成本效益的方式提供微藻/浮游动物饲料（数量）和一致性（数量和质量）仍然是扩大海水养殖业的主要限制因素。这项技术的更广泛影响是简化鱼种生产，这将导致海水孵化场的迅速扩大，从而大幅增加用于水产养殖的低成本海水鱼苗和鱼种的供应-在池塘、海洋笼和/或室内再循环系统中。这项研究有可能通过消除增加许多海洋物种产量的关键限制因素之一，即鱼苗和鱼种的不可用性和高成本，帮助启动海水养殖业。水产养殖更受欢迎的海洋鳍鱼将减轻目前受到严重威胁或过度捕捞的商业鱼类种群的压力，并允许在高度控制的生物安全条件下使用商业配方饲料进行养殖。

This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase II project's overall goal is to commercialize a robust, continuous culture production system for rotifers (Brachionus rotundiformis; s-type), the major live feed source for marine larval fish. A major bottleneck in the expansion of the marine aquaculture industry in the United States remains the lack of commercial live feed production technologies to support the grow-out industry. Specifically for rotifer culture, there exist limited standardized design and operational criteria for continuous culture methods that could facilitate increased productivity and consistency of supply. The inability to supply microalgal/zooplankton feeds cost-effectively (quantity) and consistently (quantity and quality) continues to be a major limitation to the expansion of the marine aquaculture industry.The broader impacts of this technology are simplification of fingerling production which will lead to rapid expansion of marine hatcheries and hence a dramatic increase in the availability of lower cost marine fry and fingerlings for aquaculture grow-out in ponds, ocean cages and/or indoor recirculating systems. This research has the potential to help jump-start the marine aquaculture industry by eliminating one of the key limiting factors to increasing the production of many marine species, i.e. the unavailability and the high cost of fry and fingerlings. Aquaculture production of the more popular marine finfish will relieve the pressure on commercial fish stocks that are currently severely threatened or overfished and allow culture under highly controlled, biosecure conditions using commercial formulated diets.