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International Journal of Aquaculture 2012, Vol.2, No.7, 40
-
47
http://ija.sophiapublisher.com
40
Research Report Open Access
Comparative Studies on the Growth Performance of Four Juvenile
Oreochromis
niloticus
L., (1758) Strains in Pond Culture, Ethiopia
K.B. Workagegn
1
, H.M. Gjoen
2
1. Department of Biology, Hawassa University, P.O. Box05, Hawassa, Ethiopia
2. Department of Animal & Aquaculture Sciences, Norwegian University of life Sciences, P.O. Box5003, ÅS
Corresponding author email:
kassayebalkew@mail.com;
Authors
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2012, Vol.2, No.7 doi: 10.5376/ija.2012.02.0007
Received: 16 Sep., 2012
Accepted: 28 Sep., 2012
Published: 23 Oct., 2012
Copyright: © 2012 Workagegn and Gjoen. This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Workagegn and Gjoen, 2012, Comparative Studies on the Growth Performance of Four Juvenile
Oreochromis niloticus
L., (1785) Strains in Pond Culture,
Ethiopia, International Journal of Aquaculture, Vol.2, No.7 40-47 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2012.02.0007)
Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate and compare the growth performance of four juvenile
Oreochromis niloticus
strains in
pond culture. The fish having an average body length of 9.18 cm and weight of 12.48 g were collected from Hawassa, Ziway, Koka, and
Hora lakes. They were stocked in triplicate in 5.0 m × 5.0 m × 1.5 m concrete earthen ponds in 1 m water depth. The stocking density
was 2 fish/m
3
. The fish were fed 3% of their body weight per day manually, twice a day with locally available feed having 23% crude
protein. The results showed that the Koka strain had the best strain and had significantly (p < 0.05) higher final mean body weight (FMBW),
mean body weight gain (MBWG), specific growth rate (SGR) and gross fish yield (GFY) than the Ziway and the Hora strains, but not from
the Hawassa strain. The Koka stain had the best feed conversion ratio (FCR) with slightly higher Fulton’s condition factors (FCF). However,
statistical analysis showed that there was no significant difference in FCF and FCR among the four strains. Except for the Ziway strain, all
the strains revealed an isomeric growth pattern. The overall conclusion is that growth performance between the four strains of
Oreochromis
niloticus
was significantly different and thus, it is crucial to select the right strain for aquaculture purpose. However, further research may still
be needed to compare more strains from different Ethiopian lakes to evaluate the genetic potential for
Oreochromis niloticus
breeding
program.
Keywords
Growth performance;
Oreochromis niloticus
; Pond culture; Strains
Abbreviations
IMBW: Initial Mean Body Weight; FMBW: Final
Mean Body Weight; FMBL: Final Mean Body Length;
MBWG: Mean Body Weight Gain; SGR: Specific
Growth Rate; GFY: Gross Fish Yield; FCR: Feed
Conversion Ratio; FCF: Fulton’s Condition Factors;
DSF: Daily Supplementary Feed; DO: Dissolved
Oxygen; TWv: Total Water volume; TDS: Total
Dissolved Solid; NFARRC: National Fishery and
Other Aquatic Resources Research Center; NSF:
Number of Stocked Fish; NDF: Number of Dead Fish
1 Introduction
In the view of cultured fish species, tilapia is one of
the most commercially important and widely used fish
in the global aquaculture production particularly in
tropical and subtropical areas (Gjedrem, 2005;
El-Sayed, 2006).
Oreochromis niloticus
is by far the
most important tilapia species and distributed
throughout the world (Bentsen et al., 1998; Pillay and
Kutty, 2005; El-Sayed, 2006). The importance of
Oreochromis niloticus
seams from its biological reasons:
fast growth, high food conversion ratio, readily
accepting artificial feeds, ease of breeding in captivity,
disease resistance, high fecundity; social reasons:
good table food quality, good market price; and
physical reasons: tolerant to a wide range of
environmental conditions (El-Sayed, 2006; Ashagrie
et al., 2008). Therefore, determination of different
factors such as feed quality, stocking density and
strain variations for cultured tilapia is essential to
maximize its production, profitability and sustainability.
Among these, selection of the best strains for efficient
breeding program is crucial; not only to reach the
production goal but also to reduce production cost, to
improve disease resistance, utilisation of feed
resources and product quality (Gjedrem, 1997). Even
though Ethiopian aquaculture practice is growing and
seams promising, there are no breeding centres that
produce genetically improved fish seeds for local fish
farmers and thus, fish seeds are collected from the
nearby lake or lakes. Moreover, there are no research
reports on the growth performance of different
Oreochromis niloticus
strains in pond culture. Hence,