The biennial Nothobranchius Symposium is an international symposium gathering the scientific community interested in studying various aspects of the biology of fish of the genus Nothobranchius. The 2018 Nothobranchius Symposium took place in Cologne, Germany, from June 7-9, at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing.

It is common practice in Nothobranchius husbandry to provide frozen and live food, like Artemia, bloodworms and Tubifex, to the animals throughout their approx. 6 months live span. The use of frozen and live food is, next to being time consuming to administer, having a negative effect on water quality rapidly after use and being a vector for diseases, is regarded as an absolute necessity because, despite ongoing efforts, an artificial diet for Nothobranchius is not currently available.

ZEBCARE’s sales engineer Tom van Tilburg gave a presentation on the second day of the symposium focusing on Gemma Micro feed. This high quality feed is being used with great success in zebrafish, reducing or even eliminating the need of using live feed. There may be possibilities using this Gemma Micro feed for Nothobranchius species as well, at least to reduce the use of frozen and live feed, but maybe also as sole feed, just like in zebrafish. Using Gemma Micro feeds for Nothobranchius husbandry increases biosecurity in aquatic facilities, offers a constant diet year round and reduces labor associated with feeding.

ZEBCARE is the distributor for Gemma Micro diets in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. We always have GEMMA Micro diets in stock and can deliver within days. Please contact our sales representative Tom van Tilburg for more information.