Biology and Fecundity of Two Fairy Shrimps, Streptocephalus sirindhornae Sanoamuang, Murugan, Weekers and Dumont and Branchinella thailandensis Sanoamuang, Saengphan and Murugan(Thai)

Abstract

Comparative studies on the biology and fecundity of two fairy shrimps, Streptocephalus sirindhornae Sanoamuang, Murugan, Weekers and Dumont, 2000 and Branchinella thailandensis
Sanoamuang, Saengphan and Murugan, 2002, were conducted. Male-female pairs of each species were cultured under static conditions at room temperature and fed with Chlorella sp. Growth and life span of these fairy shrimps were observed daily. The results show that the adult body lengths of S. sirindhornae and B. thailandensis were 2.43±0.12 and 2.73±0.50 cm, respectively. In S. sirindhornae, eggs in the brood pouch were observed at 130±0.29 days after hatching while in B. thailandensis, they were observed at 9 ± 0 days after  atching. Brood frequencies of S. sirindhornae and B. thailandensis were 1.27 ± 0.07 and 1.14 ± 0.04 days, espectively. S. sirindhornae produced more cysts than B. thailandensis . The numbers of broods and cysts per female of S. sirindhornae and B. thailandensis were 37.62 ± 2.29 and 14.20 ± 4.60 broods and 18,685 ± 2,130 and 6,699 ± 2,094 cysts, respectively. Comparative data indicated that S. sirindhornae had a longer life span (64.50


± 6.81 days) than  B. thailandensis (25.40 ± 9.03 days). It is suggested that S. sirindhornae is suitable for cyst production and to be cultured as an aquarium animal. The larvae of S. sirindhornae can serve as live food for commercial shrimp larvae. However, B. thailandensis has a shorter life span, and thus its adults can be used as live food for aquarium fishes and commercial aquatic animals. In addition adults of both species can be used as frozen food for aquarium fishes.