Effects of feeding rates on growth and production of Nile tilapia, common carp and silver carp polycultured in fertilized ponds

Abstract

In an attempt to identify appropriate feeding rates for multispecies of fish raised in fertilized earthen ponds, the present work was conducted over a 19week experimental period to establish the growth performance, production and body composition of Nile tilapia, common carp and silver carp fed 0.0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 3.0%, 5.0% biomass and to apparent satiation (treatments). Twelve ponds were stocked with a similar number and weight of each fish species. Two ponds were assigned to each of the treatments, and a 25% protein pelleted fish feed was used to feed fish at the specified rate of feeding. At the end of the experiment, growth, weight gain, survival, yield and body composition of fish groups were affected by the treatments. The economic effectiveness also varied among treatments. The most conspicuous attribute of the feeding rates was its lack of influence on growth (g day À1 ), weight gain (g per fish), yield (kg ha À1 ) or body composition of silver carp. The results of whole-body proximate analysis indicated that various feeding rates had either an irregular pattern or no effects on the protein and ash gain per 100 g of fish body weight (bw) gain. The most notable exceptions were significant (P , 0.05) increases in body fat and gross energy gains in Nile tilapia, common carp and silver carp accompanied by decreases in percentages of moisture (but not in silver carp) as feeding rate increased. Among the six different feeding levels, feeding to apparent satiation (feed amount was equivalent to 2.67% of fish bw day À1 ) appeared to be optimal, as it significantly (P , 0.05) supported the highest fish production, income and net profit compared with all other treatments except for the 3% feeding level, for which the differences in those measurements were comparable.

Comparative Growth Performance of Mixed-Sex and Monosex Nile Tilapia Population in Freshwater Cage Culture System under Indian Perspective

“…It has been observed that for a given food composition, the body protein percentage on a wet weight basis is mainly affected by the body weight in salmonids (Shearer 1994). Similar observations have been noticed in Nile tilapia also where body protein content increases with wet weight (Pouomogne and Mbongblang 1993;Abdelghany and Mohammed 2002). This explains the higher protein content of the treated males than corresponding controls.…”

Effect of four feeding rations on the growth performance of african giant catfish <i>Heterobranchus bidorsalis</i> fingerlings

“…The PER decreased (P < 0.05) with increased in feeding ration. Similar observations were reported for other fish species such as Cyprinus carpio, whitefish Coregonus lavaretus and Tilapia (GIFT) (Abdelghany and Ahmad, 2002;Wunderlich et al, 2011;Zikria et al, 2012).…”

“…There is paucity of data on the optimum feeding rate for this species. According to Abdelghany and Ahmad (2002) fish growth rate is directly related to ration level. The amount of feed consumed, age, body size and temperature are the most important factors that limit maximum growth of fish and prawn (Le et al, 2012;Zikria, 2012 ).…”

Anatomical and physiological studies of bigheaded carps demonstrate that the epibranchial organ functions as a pharyngeal taste organ

“…Silver carp gill rakers also have a sponge-like filtering apparatus with small pores about 100 μm in diameter (Boulenger, 1901;Fang, 1928). The ability of both these species to capture tiny phytoplankton and zooplankton efficiently is well known, leading them to being used to clean up eutrophic bodies of water (Smith, 1985;Spataru and Gophen, 1985;Smith, 1989;Kolar et al, 2005) and giving them some of the highest growth rates noted for any fish (Abdelghany and Ahmad, 2002). It is generally assumed, but unproven, that their ability to feed on tiny particles is attributable to their EO which also produces copious amounts of mucus and has often been found to contain boli of food mixed with mucus (Wilamovski, 1972;Spataru and Gophen, 1985;Kolar et al, 2005).…”