FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 80, NO. 3 



Table 3.— Average stomach contents and their corresponding caloric equiva- 

 lents of striped bass larvae feeding at different food concentrations from 9 to 29 d 

 after fertilization. Presented as number of food organisms/number of calories per 

 larva. 



Table 4.— Estimated daily food ration (number of Artemia consumed by one 

 larva in 24 h/equivalent calories consumed in 24 h) of striped bass larvae at differ- 

 ent ages feeding at different food densities. 



Greater differences were seen in the intercepts 

 than rates, and this, in turn, seemed related to 

 the initial egg sizes (total dry weights). Descrip- 

 tive equations for assimilated tissue calories of 

 the different experiments are in Table 5. Daily 

 growth coefficients (Laurence 1974) to hatching 

 and to first feeding correlated well with initial 

 egg size. The rate of growth from fertilization to 

 hatching age (avg. Gw= 1.872) was three times 

 that to feeding age (avg. G w = 0.647). 



Standard lengths at hatching (3.9±0.6 mm), 

 and especially at first feeding (5.8±0.3 mm) 

 (Table 5), also correlated well with initial egg 

 size. Smaller standard deviation of D-7 larvae 



than of newly hatched larvae (coefficients of var- 

 iation 5% vs. 15%) suggests larval lengths con- 

 verged with age. 



Growth characteristics of feeding larvae were 

 unique to each batch within each food concentra- 

 tion as was found in earlier stages. Examples are 

 given in Figures 4 and 5 which present growth in 

 tissue calories and standard lengths of larvae fed 

 the high food ration (5.0 Artemia/ ml). 



Within each batch, growth was linearly re- 

 lated to food concentration (Fig. 6). Differences 

 in overall growth are again apparent. Experi- 

 ment 7 larvae grew fastest. 



Larval length-weight relations were exponen- 



Table 5.— Best descriptive equations (y = tissue calories, x = days after fertilization), initial egg dry weights, 

 standard length, and growth coefficients of striped bass embryos and prefeeding larvae. 



'Daily instantaneous growth coefficients 

 grams. 



log e W/days after fertilization where W = dissected tissue dry weight in micro- 



466 



