Food Laboratory

The main job of the personnel is the production of high quality live food for the marine and freshwater animals in exhibition. The live food consists mainly of zooplankton species such as artemia, rotifer and copepod which contain the proteins, vitamins and minerals that give our animals the health and vitality they need.


As a primary producer, phytoplankton makes up the first level of the food chain and thus we cultivate a number of species of microalgae such as: Chaetoceros and Tetraselmis suecica to feed the Artemia.

Adult Artemia have a longer body, segmented and oval in shape. It is a small micro crustacean, which can measure a centimeter as an adult. Its eggs can be encysted and those cysts can be de-capsulated in order to obtain naupli, an even smaller food source.

The Mazatlan Aquarium Laboratory has an area for different strain collections such as rotifers like Brachionus plicatilis and Brachionus rotundiformis. We also have freshwater.

At the Aquarium's Lab we collaborate with students working on their research, thesis, and volunteer work and exchange students. We work with institutions such as Sea and Limnology Institution, Technological Institute of Mazatlan, Faculty of Ocean Science and many high schools.