In the middle of January, batches of wolffish eggs were collected from broodstock fish that were maintained at the Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture. Now they are being closely monitored on a daily basis.

Wolffish has a very long and slow egg development period and normally they hatch somewhere between 900 – 1000 degree-days. Hence, we expect that the egg batches at our facility will hatch approximately in the middle of June; 6 months after fertilization. While the eggs are developing in the incubators, students, technical and scientific staff are making fine adjustments and preparations to be in a good position to start the planned activities when the eggs are hatching.

At hatching, the larvae are large (20-22 mm in length), and well developed. In addition, with a fully functional digestive system, they are capable of digesting and feeding directly on microparticle diets. This is a great advantage as the expensive and labour-intensive live feed stages can be omitted from the hatchery procedures.

The main focus of our first wolffish larvae experiment will be on early feed uptake, light settings and feeding behaviour. The newly purchased video tracking equipment from Noldus Information Technology along with its analysis software will be used to closely monitor the wolffish larvae to get a better and more in-depth understanding of the response of the larvae to different stimulus during this first fragile developmental stage.

Here is a sneak peek of our activities: