Take a look at our winter spawn. Our adult white seabass have produced fertilized eggs that have been gathered in the 'egg trap'. The eggs will soon be transferred to their larval-rearing tanks. There they will take 2 days to hatch from their eggs and start free swimming in the water. 

Check out the video to see if you can spot the floating eggs! 

Very tiny. These eggs are around 2mm in diameter. A female white seabass will produce an average of 1.8 million of these eggs per spawn!

Technically, -1 Days Post Hatch. These eggs are developing, cells are multiplying, and larval fish are getting ready to leave their eggs. 

Success! Hatching day. While they are no longer living inside an egg shell, these larvae cannot eat yet. For the next 2 days they will feed off the yolk sac attached to them as they continue to develop! 

Look closely, can you see features or body parts on these 0 day old fish?

Happy first day for our white seabass. Notice the difference in the yolk sacs from 0 DPH to 1 DPH. Much smaller! These fish have been consuming those nutrients and using them to grow. More features are coming into focus now, can you spot their eyes?

A week old! 

Our larval white seabass are developing well. More body parts can be seen, especially the eyes. In the wild, white seabass are already predators at this point in their life and need to hunt for food to survive. Well developed eyes are key to see prey and run from predators of their own.

Two weeks down, countless to go. 

The growth of our seabass continues. Pigments continue developing on their skin and their dorsal (top) spines. 

Predators in action!

It is a rough life for small creatures in the ocean. A complex food system that is dominated by eat or be eaten. We simplify that for our hatchery fish by feeding them only things they can eat, little brine shrimp called artemia. Watch these larval hunters get their meal.

Older, bigger, wiser.

Look at these larva grow. The bodies are getting darker and you can just barely make out internal structures through the light from the microscope. The eyes are still large, but getting more proportional to their bodies. 

What changes can you spot from last week to here?

Too Many Too Count!

Our seabass are reaching a month in age and their growth is about to skyrocket as they leave the larval stage and head into their juvenile phase of development. 

Thousands of brothers and sisters.

Dive on in to our larval rearing tank with the whole crop of white seabass swimming around. A little disorienting at first, you can start to make out some of the fish and their behaviors as they are moving about. 

Big head first, the rest will follow. 

In the world of microscopic ocean life, the game is eat or be eaten. To survive, seabass have to become veracious predators eating as much as possible very early in their life. One helpful factor is their giant head! Developing a large mouth first helps provide many dinner opportunities a smaller mouthed fish may not have. As the fish get older, their bodies will start to elongate and their form will start to resemble the adult stage of their life.