Efecto de dietas artificiales, con y sin atrayente, sobre el crecimiento del pulpo común, Octopus vulgaris

Abstract

The inexistence of prepared diets is a major bottleneck that has prevented large-scale fattening of Octopus vulgaris. During the present experiments, the effects of two diets based on raw blue whiting with or without attractant (taurine), in experiment I, as well of other two diets based on mussel and blue whiting also with or without the same attractant in experiment II were tested on growth of O. vulgaris. Squid was used as the control diet in both experiments. None of the artificial diets promoted growth and feeding rates were higher for animals fed squid (>4.5%BW d–1) compared to the artificial diets (<2%BW d–1) in both experiments. No differences were found in growth and feeding rates between the artificial diets, which indicates that the inclusion of taurine as an attractant in the diet was not beneficial.