2. Materials and methods
2.1. Animals
Cultured striped trumpeter juveniles were reared at the Marine
Research Laboratories (MRL) of the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries
Institute (TAFI) in Taroona, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Juvenile
fish were housed in tanks at two locations; a 25,000 L tank inside a
shed and a 3000 L tank outside the shed but under a canopy. Both
tanks were flow through with seawater supplied at ambient temperature
(ranging from 11 °C in winter to 19 °C in summer), light, and
salinity (33–34‰). Water temperature gradually increased from
15 °C to the peak of 19 °C in February and then decreased to 16 °C
in May. All incoming water was sand-filtered until the beginning of
2010; there was no water treatment afterwards. Fish were fed commercial
pellets (Nova ME, Skretting, Cambridge, Australia) to satiation
level which is approximately 1–2% body weight per day. The
fish were sampled opportunistically when they were culled for
other reasons. As a result it was not possible to achieve balanced sampling
design. A total of 116 fish from two different cohorts were sampled
in spring and autumn