Nutrition and the lack of an established protocol for the larviculture of Octopus are some of the bottlenecks for the development of Octopus aquaculture. This study aims to start filling in these knowledge gaps by obtaining daily feeding rates (FR) of Octopus americanus paralarvae at different ages by testing different live prey types (Artemia nauplii, Acartia lilljeborgii copepods, and Callinectes sapidus zoeae) and densities (20, 40, 60, 80, 120, and 160 prey L⁻¹). In addition, prey preference was assessed by exposing paralarvae to these prey types simultaneously. The dry weight (DW) of the prey was obtained and used to estimate the daily DW ingestion rate of paralarvae. Experiments were performed with 1- and 8–9-day-old paralarvae. The FRs recorded for different prey densities and the effect of different prey types on prey preference were analyzed through one-way ANOVA. The FRs recorded were quite different among the preys tested. The highest mean FRs for hatchlings was 26.2±6.9 zoeae paralarva⁻¹ day⁻¹ and for 8-day-old paralarvae was 63–69 Artemia nauplii paralarva⁻¹ day⁻¹. Therefore, the following prey densities are recommended for the larviculture of paralarvae up to 10 days of age: 80 copepods L⁻¹, 160 Artemia nauplii L⁻¹, and 80 zoeae L⁻¹. Hatchlings showed a significant preference for zoeae, and Artemia nauplii and zoeae were significantly more preyed by 8-day-old paralarvae. Our results demonstrated that increasing prey density increases FR and predation by paralarvae, and zoeae were by far the preferred prey of hatchlings.

营养和章鱼幼体缺乏成熟的操作规程是章鱼水产养殖发展的瓶颈。这项研究的目的，开始通过获得的每日摄食率（FR），这些知识空白填补八达通美洲通过测试不同的活的猎物类型paralarvae在不同的年龄段（卤虫无节幼体，纺锤lilljeborgii桡足类，和蓝蟹zoeae）和密度（20，40 ，60、80、120和160的猎物L ^-1）。另外，通过同时将幼虫暴露于这些猎物类型来评估猎物的偏爱。获得了猎物的干重（DW），并将其用于估计寄生虫的每日DW摄入速率。实验是用1和8-9天大的幼虫进行的。通过单向方差分析分析记录的不同猎物密度和不同猎物类型对猎物偏好的影响的FR。记录的FR在测试的猎物之间完全不同。孵化的最高平均FRs是26.2±6.9​​ zoeae幼虫^-1天^-1，而8天大的幼虫是63-69卤虫幼虫paralarva ^-1天^-1。因此，下面的猎物密度被推荐用于paralarvae向上的larviculture至10日龄：80个桡足类大号^-1，160卤虫无节幼体大号^-1，和80 zoeae大号^-1。孵化的幼鱼表现出对zoeae的显着偏爱，而8天大的幼虫则对Artemia nauplii和zoeae的捕食明显更多。我们的研究结果表明，增加猎物密度会增加幼虫的捕食率和捕食能力，而到目前为止，zoeae是孵化场的首选猎物。