ENRICHMENT OF Artemia franciscana AND TOXICITY ANALYSIS OF CHLORPYRIFOS ON ENRICHED ARTEMIA

The present study highlights the importance of Artemia as a common fish feed worldwide The Artemia cyst were collected, decapsulated, incubated for harvesting, and washed and separated. The Artemia was fed with two different formulations of feed and the growth of Artemia were observed. The feed supplemented with groundnut oil cake and wheat flour established a faster growth rate than the feed supplemented with spirulina powder and rice bran. Aminoacid analysis is carried out by HPLC in following two types of Artemia samples. The cytotoxicity test was performed using chlorpyrifos pesticide. Enriched Artemia is tested for chlorpyrifos toxicity by giving different concentrations (25, 50,100, 200, 300) in µl for 5 hours. LC50 value of the chlorpyrifos from the given concentration on enriched Artemia is = 187.6 µg/ml. Adult enriched Artemia cannot tolerate the toxicity for even a few hours. The observations proved that adult enriched Artemia was easily susceptible to various toxic agents such as pesticides, parasites, and other microbes. Enriched Artemia nauplii are very much less sensitive to the pesticide when compared with adult Artemia. It can tolerate the toxic over the adult Artemia. As a result, enriched nauplii are the best food source for freshwater and marine fishes and other crustaceans.