Abstract

From 1998 – 2002 The University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast Research Lab in conjunction with Mote Marine Laboratory and the Oceanic Institute conducted a stock enhancement project with red snapper Lutjanus campechanus. The main role of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in this project was to spawn and rear the snapper. I ran this study in an attempt to optimize the hatchery and early larval rearing techniques of the snapper, those aspects of the study which experienced the highest mortality rates. This study was designed to determine the optimal temperature at which to hatch the eggs and rear the larva during the first three days before the onset of feeding. A preliminary analysis of the results suggests an optimal hatching temperature from 30-31 degreesºC which produced hatches between 77-93%. The hatch dropped off dramatically as the temperature was increased or decreased, even a little. This suggests that there is a fairly narrow range of temperature at which red snapper eggs hatch efficiently. Larval survival post hatch, although it varied between experiments suggesting a variation between batches of fish, was highest around 28ºC (mean 60% for the three experiments). However, unlike hatching temperature, the larvae seemed to have good survival (47-60% for the three experiments) over a ten degree range of temperature (23-33ºC)

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