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Live feeds are essential in larval nutrition of many fish and crustacean species. As the consumers' demand for aquaculture products is growing rapidly, the demand for live feeds in larviculture is increasing as well. To satisfy the growing demand, research has taken steps to develop new innovative live feeds. Several studies focused on nematodes as a potential food source for larvae. Production methods, culture media, harvest, and enrichment procedures for nematodes presented in these studies are reviewed here. Many studies fed nematodes to different species of fish and crustaceans to test applicability in larval nutrition. The results of these feeding trials in terms of larval performance as well as ingestion and digestion of nematodes in the larvae's gut are reviewed here as well. In addition, a summary of advantages and disadvantages of nematodes as live food and an outlook on future challenges of production and application of nematodes in larviculture are also presented. In summary, several different production methods including innovative culture media for nematodes have been developed. The species Panagrellus redivivus has been used in most of the reviewed studies. It reproduces extremely fast and can be cultivated by very simple means of production. Other species such as Turbatrix aceti and Caenorhabditis elegans have been tested in a few studies as well. However, a complete production cycle for mass production appropriate for use in aquaculture has not been developed yet for any of these species. Enrichment trials for amino acids revealed only a very limited potential to manipulate amino acid profiles in nematodes. In contrast, fatty acid composition turned out to be quite variable depending on the culture media used for nematode production. By adding oils containing large quantities of essential fatty acids to the culture media, these fatty acids could be enriched in nematodes and provided to larvae. This allows tailoring fatty acid composition according to the needs of the respective larvae. It could be shown that nematodes can be digested by fish larvae even though they possess a robust cuticle. Larval performance depends strongly on the respective species of fish to which the nematodes are fed. Nematodes seemed to work particularly well for crustacean larvae. In penaeid larvae, nematodes turned out to be a good live food that can compete with conventional feeding methods even though there is still room for improvements. For future use in larviculture, appropriate methods for mass production, harvest, and feeding need to be developed. Additionally, more data on optimized feeding levels for different fish and crustacean species will be required.

Summary By incorporating the free‐swimming nematode Turbatrix aceti into early feeding regimes of the European whitefish Coregonus maraena, the suitability of this nematode species was investigated as an alternative to Artemia nauplii. During a 14‐day feeding trial in a total of 25 aquaria each 1.7 L (each treatment n = 5, 255 larvae/tank) T. aceti was used either as the sole live food or in combination with Artemia nauplii or microdiet to determine the effect of T. aceti on growth performance and survival rate of C. maraena. By analysing the fatty acid composition of T. aceti prior to and after enrichment with INVE spresso® it was investigated whether the amount of n3‐polyunsaturated fatty acids (n3‐PUFA) in T. aceti could be further enhanced. Supplementation of Artemia nauplii with T. aceti increased growth significantly within the first 5 days of rearing in comparison to the non‐supplemented food treatments (14.39 ± 0.15 mm compared to 13.44 ± 0.18 mm; mean ± SE). However, growth and survival of juvenile C. maraena on nematode‐supplemented Artemia nauplii did not differ significantly from non‐supplemented Artemia nauplii at the end of the 14‐day rearing period (15.22 ± 0.15 mm compared to 14.86 ± 0.24 mm). All feeding treatments containing Artemia nauplii showed significantly higher growth and lower mortality at the end of the experiment in comparison to diets containing only the microdiet or T. aceti or a combination thereof. The overall low performance of T. aceti alone can most likely be explained by an insufficient capacity of C. maraena to digest this nematode species efficiently. Enrichment with INVE spresso® successfully increased the proportion of DHA in the T. aceti tissue. The results reveal that T. aceti cannot be considered a full alternative to Artemia nauplii, at least not in the rearing of C. maraena, but might be a useful vector of essential fatty acids within the early rearing period of this and potentially other fish species when provided as live food along with Artemia nauplii.

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Summary The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of 11 different culture media for production of the free‐living nematode Turbatrix aceti. Several other harvesting methods were tested in addition to mass production. A further focus was the investigation of amino acid alterations caused by the application of various media during the culture of T. aceti and two additional nematode species, Panagrellus redivivus and Caenorhabditis elegans. Finally, a cost analysis for the production of T. aceti was generated and its outcome compared to the production of conventional live feed organisms. Altogether 11 liquid culture media were tested for mass production of the nematode Turbatrix aceti using a minimum of effort in terms of labour and costs. Six harvesting methods, including filtration as well as active swimming of T. aceti were evaluated. Additional to the culture of T. aceti in four of the above‐mentioned media, the nematodes P. redivivus and C. elegans were cultured on two different solid media. Cost analysis for the production of T. aceti includes those of the media, the equipment, as well as the labour costs for culture and harvest. An average density of approx. 30 × 106 ± 8.13 × 106 nematodes L−1 was achieved for T. aceti. The most efficient method (20 μm filtration) allowed harvesting 85.3 ± 2.7% of the nematodes from the medium without disturbing the particles. Lowest efficiency was achieved by combining sedimentation and filtration, accomplishing a harvest of 42.1 ± 5.8%. The amino acid profile of all three nematode species turned out to be both stable and very similar. Amino acid enrichment had little effect. The costs for producing one million T. aceti individuals ranged between 5.39 and 6.19 €, where labour costs accounted for 73 to 84% of the total production costs. In conclusion, T. aceti appears to be very robust, easy to handle, as well as cheaper to cultivate compared to other live‐feed organisms. Therefore, its use in commercial aquaculture should be given future consideration.