Continuous flow stimulation had no significant effect on the growth rate but was conducive to the swimming performance, spontaneous behavior, and nonspecific immune parameter of juvenile Percocypris pingi

Abstract Flow stimulation before release into the wild may contribute to improved survivability of farmed fish. However, the effects of flow stimulation on the survival rate of fish depend on the fish species and exercise regime, such as exercise type, duration, and intensity. In this study, juvenile Percocypris pingi swam for 18 h per day for 8 weeks under different water speeds, 3 cm s −1 (control) and 1, 2, and 4 body lengths (bl) s −1 , at 20°C. Then, parameters related to the growth rate, swimming capacity, spontaneous activity, and immune function were measured. We found that (1) continuous flow stimulation had no significant influence on the growth but was conducive to the increase in the relative carcass mass; (2) continuous flow stimulation at 2 or 4 bl s −1 enhanced the aerobic swimming capacity ( U crit ), which may be due to an increase in anaerobic exercise capacity (endurance time) rather than to changes in maximum metabolic rate and aerobic scope; (3) continuous flow stimulation at 4 bl s −1 led to a significant increase in spontaneous activity, which was mainly due to the higher percent time spent moving as compared with the controls; and (4) continuous flow stimulation at 2 bl s −1 may contribute to improving the nonspecific immune parameter (lysozyme activity) in juvenile P. pingi . Our findings suggest that continuous flow stimulation at 2 or 4 bl s −1 for 18 h per day for 56 days at 20°C before release in wild may be a suitable training regime for improving the survival rate of cultured juvenile P. pingi .