International Journal of Aquaculture 2015, Vol.5, No. 35, 1-6
1
The Effect of Two Commercial and On-farm Made Aquafeeds on Growth and
Survival Rate of
Oreochromis niloticus
(Nile Tilapia)
R
eared in Hapas
Rodney M.C.
1
, Confred G.M.
2
1 Department of Fisheries, National Aquaculture Research and Development Centre, Kitwe, Zambia
2 The Copperbelt University, School of Natural Resources, P.O. Box 21692, Kitwe, Zambia
Corresponding author email:
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2015, Vol.5, No.35 doi:
Received: 28 Sep., 2015
Accepted: 09 Nov., 2015
Published: 05 Jan., 2016
Copyright © 2015
Rodney and Confred, 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:
Rodney M.C., and Confred G.M., 2015, The effect of two commercial and on-farm made aquafeeds on growth and survival rate of
Oreochromis niloticus
(Nile
Tilapia) reared in Hapas, International Journal of Aquaculture, 5(35): 1-6 (doi:
Abstract
An experiment was conducted for 12 weeks to determine the effect of two commercial and on-farm made aqua feeds on the
growth and survival rate of
Oreochromis niloticus
reared in 2×4 hapas mounted in a concrete sided pond. A total of 90 fish with
stocking rates of 15 fish (average wt 10.5g/fish) per hapa were used, replicated twice. Feeds with 30% crude protein were
administered to the fish twice per day at 5% of biomass determined at the previous sampling. Growth of fish was monitored
fortnightly. Body weights and lengths were measured after 24 hours of fasting. Results indicated that total body length and specific
growth rate increased with advancement of the experimental period, while weight gain/day and length values were almost similar in
all the groups. However, all the tested growth parameters favoured those fed on Diet 3 compared to those given Diets 2 and 1
respectively. A similar pattern was equally observed on final mean weights and survival rates, which ranged from: 29.2g and 93%
for fish fed Diet 3, 22.9g and 87% for fish fed Diet 2 and 21.6g and 78% for fish given Diet 1, across all treatments. The highest
mean daily and cumulative feed intake was observed in a treatment with mean growth of 29.2g/fish. This study has therefore, proved
without doubt that Diet 3 had enhanced the overall growth performance and survival rate of
Oreochromis niloticus
.
Keywords
Effect; Commercial; On-FarmAquafeed; Growth; Survival Rate;
Oreochromis niloticus
; Hapas
Introduction
In Zambia, many small scale farmers have been using
organic manure and supplementary feed in their ponds
to increase productivity. Equally, as reported by
Lovell (Lovell, 1998), not so many farmers were
practicing aquaculture on commercial basis and only
few companies were producing nutritionally balanced
feed for a few commercial farmers that were operating
in the country (Lovell, 1998). Whether you are raising
fish for commercial sale or simply have a pond in
your backyard, proper nutrition plays a vital role in
maintaining the health of your fish and faster growth
(Hafedh, 1999). However, fish differed in their feed
diets and nutritional requirements and it was very
difficult to know the actual nutrition requirement for a
specific species as it may respond differently to a
particular feed; which may affect its growth and
survival (Thomas, 2010). Feed in any aquaculture
enterprise operating at semi-intensive or intensive
level got the highest share of budget (De Silva, 1995)
and for that reason, feed that gave maximum growth
rate together with high survival rate of the cultured
species were of interest to many nutritionist in the
field of aquaculture (De Silva, 1995). Fish diets are
formulated by nutritionists to ensure they receive the
nourishment they need for best growth and feed
conversion (FCR’s) (Hafedh, 1999).
Zambia has currently more than four fish feed
manufacturing firms, which are responsible for
producing quality fish feeds. Despite these feeds being
readily available, many small scale fish farmers in
most instances were unable to purchase them due to
high prices, thus a need to come up with cost effective
and nutritionally balanced on-farm aqua feed.
Materials and Methods
The study on growth and survival rate of
O. niloticus
was determined from three different feeds that were
used. In this study, an on-farm made aquafeed (Diet 1)
from National
Aquaculture Research and
Research Report
Open Access
