Effects of short-term continuous and intermittent feeding regimes on food consumption, growth, gonad production and quality of sea urchin Strongylocentrotus intermedius fed a formulated feed

Abstract

Feeding regime is an important concern for sea urchin aquaculture. However, optimal feed regimes have not been establishedfor land-based sea urchin ventures using a formulated feed. In this study, we investigated the effects of short-term continuousand intermittent feeding regimes on food consumption, growth, gonad production and quality of the sea urchinStrongylocentrotus intermedius (54.90 + 2.28 mm of test diameter) fed a formulated feed. The results showed that (1) comparedwith initial conditions, all involved traits except a* (test diameter, test height, body weight, gonad weight, gonad index,gonad moisture, L* and b*) showed significant increase at the end of the experiments; (2) only the longest term feed regimetested in this trial (S2) significantly negatively affected growth and gonad production of S. intermedius fed a formulated feed;(3) there was a trend but this was not significant for inhibiting gonad development of S. intermedius in intermittent feedingregimes and there was no change in the gonad colour and sweetness; (4) S0.5 (fasting half day and then feeding half day) is theoptimal intermittent feeding regime for S. intermedius fed a formulated feed. To our knowledge, the present study is the firstreport of finding an effective intermittent feeding regime for land-based cultured sea urchins of relatively large size, and thushas direct application potential in the field of aquaculture.