DIET DEVELOPMENT FOR JUVENILE ABALONE HALIOTIS-FULGENS EVALUATION OF 2 ARTIFICIAL DIETS AND MACROALGAE

Two artificial diets made with local ingredients, fish meal (FM) and c asein meal (CM), proved to give better growth than that obtained with macroalgae (MA), the natural food of Haliotis fulgens, a native abalon e from the northern coast of Mexico. The experiment was conducted on t riplicate groups, each consisting of 20 abalone. The duration of the s tudy was 90 days. Diets were offered as dry pellets of 2 cm2. The grow th pattern was very similar for both treatments fed artificial diets ( FM and CM), and the highest growth rate was during the first weeks, de creasing gradually thereafter. The abalone fed with FM showed the high est growth rate, being 101 mum per day. The rate at the end of the exp eriment was 13.5 mum per day. For the CM the daily growth rate decreas ed from 98 to 17 mum per day. With MA, the growth rate decreased from 25 to 17 mum per day. The decrease in growth rate may be due to severa l factors.