Methodology for assessing the food attractiveness of feeding objects on the example of juvenile Australian red claw crayfish

Abstract

The aim of the work: to identify behavioral responses that make it possible to characterize the food attractiveness of potential feeding objects for juveniles of the crayfish Cherax quadricarinatus.Used methods: the study was conducted on the juvenile Australian red-clawed crayfish C. quadricarinatus, in the aquarium room of aquaculture invertebrate department at VNIRO. 11 types of feeding objects of plant and 4 types of animal origin were studied, as well as TetraWaferMix compound feed as a control. A total of 616 experiments were performed.Newness: on the juveniles of the Australian red-clawed crayfish C. quadricarinatus, the methodology for assessing the nutritional attractiveness of feeding objects by the nature of behavior during feed consumption was tested.Result: the experiments conducted showed that a large proportion of individuals who threw, crumbled, held food with their oral limbs for a long time without attempting to mechanical processing it or did not eat the food, indicates its unsatisfactory nutritional qualities. The time spent by crayfish on eating food depends on the hardness of the proposed components, the rate of their softening in water, the size of individuals and therefore cannot directly characterize the nutritional attractiveness of the feed. Most of the proposed forage objects (11 out of 15) had attractive nutritional characteristics for juveniles of C. quadricarinatus crayfish. The most active juveniles consumed animal feed (larvae of Chironomus sp. and Hermetia illucens, squid meat, Gammarus sp.), and among the feeds of plant origin, the seeds of oats, wheat and fried buckwheat, as well as beets and potatoes had the greatest attractiveness.