International Journal of Aquaculture, 2016, Vol.6, No.7, 1
-
10
1
Research Article Open Access
Assessment of Growth and Survival Rates of African Catfish (
Clarias gariepinus
BURCHELL 1822) Fry Fed On Soybean Milk-Based Diets
A.P. Chelewani, D. Kassam
,
V.J.M. Chiwanda
Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries Science, Lilongwe University of Agriculture Natural Resources, P.O. Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi
Corresponding author Email
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2016, Vol. 6, No.7 doi
Received: 11 Sep., 2016
Accepted: 28 Oct., 2016
Published: 23 Nov., 2016
Copyright © 2016
Chelewani et al., 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
:
Chelewani A.P., Kassam D., and Chiwanda V.J.M., 2016, Assessment of growth and survival rates of African catfish (
Clarias gariepinus
Burchell 1822) fry fed
on soybean milk-based diets, International Journal of Aquaculture, 6(7): 1-10 (doi
Abstract
African catfish (
Clarias gariepinus
) has higher potential yield than tilapia species farmed in Malawi. However,
production is hindered by shortage of fingerlings due to mass mortality at fry stage attributed to poor feeding. A 42-day feeding trial
was conducted at Bunda fish farm (14°10'25.6"S 33°48'21.6"E) of the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources,
Lilongwe, Malawi to assess growth and survival rates of African catfish fry fed on soymilk based diets. In this experiment, four
thousand five hundred fry (average weight; 0.0288 g ±0.0068) were fed on two soymilk based diets and an egg yolk based control
diet, each replicated thrice. Significantly higher percent weight gain and specific growth rate was observed in fry fed on egg yolk
based diets and diets based on soymilk from roasted soybeans compared to fry fed on diets based on soymilk prepared from raw
beans. No significant differences were observed between catfish fry fed on egg yolk based diets and catfish fry fed on diets based on
soymilk from roasted soybeans. Survival percentage was highest (42.46±5.93558) in fry fed on a diet based on soymilk from roasted
soybeans. This was found to be significantly higher (P=0.05) than survival percentage of fry fed on egg yolk based diet
(18.33±3.0118). No significant differences in survival rate (%) were recorded in fry fed on diets based on soymilk from roasted
soybeans and soymilk from raw soybeans (36.93±5.42873). The results demonstrate that diets based on soymilk from roasted
soybeans can be used to improve survival of African catfish fry and improve fingerling production, the biggest bottleneck in African
catfish production in Malawi.
Keywords
African catfish;
Clarias gariepinus
; Soymilk-based; Fry stage; Growth rate; Survival rate
Background
In Malawi, per capita supply of fish from capture fisheries in recent years has steadily increased due to the
abundance of the small cyprinid Usipa (
Engraulicypris sardella
) which constitutes 70% of the total catch from
Lake Malawi (Njaya, 2015). In spite of this, fish supply from capture fisheries continues to fall short of the
demand of one of the fastest growing populations in the SADC region. This has resulted in decline in fish per
capita consumption in the country from 14 kg/person in the 1970s to about 5.6 kg/person (USAID, 2015). The
development is of particular nutritional concern considering that fish provides over 40% of total dietary protein
and 72% of the dietary animal protein in Malawi (Ecker and Qaim, 2011). Clearly, the potential of aquaculture as
a complementary source of fish has to be further developed if fish is to remain an important source of food,
nutritional and economic security for many Malawians.
Current combined production from small scale and large scale fish farming accounts for around 2% of the
country’s total fish production, about 3 500 tones (Njaya, 2015). Increased fish production from aquaculture
would require, among others, the selection of suitable species for intensive production. Currently, Malawian
aquaculture is dominated by the production of three tilapia species, namely;
Oreochromis shiranus
,
Oreochromis
karongae
and
Tilapia rendalli
. Among them, the three species account for over 90% of production with
Clarias
gariepinus
contributing to around 5% of total production (ADiM, 2005; FAO, 2006; Iita, 2013). The major
problem with the production of the three tilapiine species is slow growth rate leading to stunting where females
tend to become sexually mature and reproduce early at a small size (M’balaka et al., 2013).
