Studies On Artificial Diet For Whitmania Pigra Whitman

Whitmania pigra Whitman belongs to Haemo pidae and dried W. pigra, Hirudo, is a famous medicinal material to treat cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.Huge demands in the market of Hirudo and increasing environment pollution leads to the wild resources getting seriously reduced. Although the cultivation of W. pigra has got success,but its development was limited because of shortage of artificialfeed for W. Pigra. Current study include camparing and analyzing the nutritional ingredient in W. pigra, the experiment on the feeding of W. Pigra. by artificial diets and effects of artificial diets on the water quality. Results show that:(1) The contents of protein, crude fat, total sugar,inorganic elements and amino acid in the Whitmania pigra and body fluid and flesh of Bellamya purificata were detcted with Kjeldahl method, Soxhlet extraction,3,5-Dinitrosalicylic Acid, ICP-AES and automatic amino acid analyzer. Results show that the contents of protein, crude fat and total sugar in W. pigra, body fluid and flesh of B. purificata were significantly different (p<0.05).Protein content in W. pigra accounts up to65.01%. The contents of inorganic elements and amino acid were abundant in W. pigra, body fluid and flesh of B. purificata. The content of essential amino acids in them were32.6,221.59,40.78mg·g-1, respectively. The content of flavor amino acid in them were27.51,14.5,32.03mg·g-1, while the coresponding content of antioxidant amino acid were8.81,5.91,9.73mg·g-1, respectively. The individual amino acids of high content in them were Glu, Asp and Leu. Macro elements Ca, P, Mg and trace elements Zn, Si, Fe were abundant.(2)The experiment classification was B. purificata feeding group,mixture of B. purificata and artificial diets feeding group. The artificial diets was divided by the principle on the contents of protein, crude fat and total sugar in W. pigra, body fluid and flesh of B. purificata. And the protein groups includes animal protein groups,plant protein groups and mixture of animal and plant protein groups depending on the protein sources.The experiment lasted for50days,its weight were detected each10days.In the final of experiment the quality and digestive enzyme activities of W. pigra were also detected in order to find the best artificial diet.Generally the mixture group were better than the artificial diets feeding group and B. purificata feeding group.In the protein group, the animal protein group were better than B. purificata feeding group. In the fat group, the body fluid group was better than B. purificata feeding group;in the sugar group the flesh group was better than the body fluid group. We know that a few of mixture group can be replaced to feed W. pigra.(3) The pH of4groups were in7～9and the content of hydrogen sulfide were less than0.01mg/L. The content of solution oxygen、ammonia and nitrite were siginificantly different at different contions.