Captive breeding and larval rearing of the endemic ornamental fish Moustached Danio, Danio dangila (Hamilton, 1822) – First report

Moustached danio, _Danio dangila,_ is a potential ornamental fish of India but the stock of this endemic Cyprinid is declining in the wild due to environmental variation and anthropogenic activities. Hence, the present work on induced breeding and larval rearing was undertaken to conserve this species. During the investigation, live fish were brought from Assam (North-East Indian region) to ARTP, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. In experiment 1, trials to breed the species using the synthetic hormone WOVA-FH, since the species did not respond to breed in captivity, revealed the highest spawning (1002.50±52.6), fertilization (84.0±2.72%) and hatching rate (86.5±2.9%) after intraperitonial injection at 0.5 ml/kg for females and 0.3 ml/kg for males. In experiment 2, larval rearing in nursery raceways and FRP tanks at different stocking densities for 45 days showed that the RAS-based nursery raceways produced the highest survival (91.79±1.67%) and specific growth rate (0.13±0.001%/day) at 30 numbers/L stocking density. The present investigation standardized the breeding and larval rearing protocol in advanced aquaculture systems and can give significant implications on the conservation and seed production of the species.