International Journal of Aquaculture, 2018, Vol.8, No.9, 65-72
65
Research Article Open Access
Growth Performance of Three Nile Tilapia (
Oreochromis niloticus
L., 1758)
Populations in Pond System
Adamneh Dagne
, Abelneh Yimer
National Fisheries and Aquatic Life Research Center, P.O. Box 64, Sebeta, Ethiopia
Corresponding author Email
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2018, Vol.8, No.9 doi
Received: 08 Mar., 2018
Accepted: 11 Apr., 2018
Published: 20 Apr., 2018
Copyright © 2018
Adamneh and Abelneh, 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
:
Adamneh D., and Abelneh Y., 2018, Growth performance of three Nile tilapia (
Oreochromis niloticus
L., 1758) populations in pond system, International
Journal of Aquaculture, 8(9): 65-72 (doi
Abstract
A 120 days study was conducted to evaluate the growth performances of juvenile
Oreochromis niloticus
from different
lakes (Chamo, Tana and Hashengie) in pond culture system. Fingerlings of average weights 16.7, 15 and 16.9 g for
O. niloticus
from
Lake Chamo, Lake Tana and Lake Hshengie, respectively were stocked at stocking density of 2 fish/m
2
with three replicates each.
The treatment groups were fed formulated feed with 29% crude protein at 5% of their body weight per day. Final mean weight of
Nile tilapia was highest (
p
<0.05) for Lake Chamo (59.6 g) followed by Lake Hashengie (46 g) and Lake Tana (39.4). Daily growth
rate (0.4 g per day), Specific growth rate (1.1% per day) and Food conversion ratio (2.5) of
O. niloticus
from Lake Chamo were
significantly (
p
<0.05) different from
O. niloticus
of Lake Tana and Lake Hashengie. On the other hand,
O. niloticus
from Lake Tana
and Lake Hashengie had 0.2 g per day and 0.8% per day daily growth rate and specific growth rate, respectively.
O. niloticus
from
Lake Hashengie was also significantly (
p
<0.05) higher in its final mean weight (46 g) and mean weight gain (29.1 g) than
O.
niloticus
from Lake Tana. On the other hand, there was no significant difference (
p
<0.05) in the Specific Groth Rate and Food
conversion ratio between
O. niloticus
of Lake Tana and Lake Hashengie. In conclusion, the result of the present study revealed that
O.
niloticus
strain from Lake Chamo showed better growth performance compared to those from Lake Tana and Lake Hashengie. Based
on the current result, we recommended
O. niloticus
strain from Lake Chamo can be considered for tilapia stocking and also for
further strain selection programs.
Keywords
Oreochromis niloticus
; Growth performance; Lake Chamo; Lake Tana; Lake Hashengie
Background
Nile tilapia (
Oreochromis niloticus
L., 1758) is one of the most dominant and popular indigenous fish species in
sub-Saharan water bodies. Several studies reported that tilapia is one of the widely farmed fish species in the
tropics and sub-tropical areas (Liti et al., 2006; El-Sayed, 2006; Kassahun et al., 2012; Zenebe et al., 2012,
Abdelhamid et al., 2017; Katya et al., 2017). It has been reported that tilapia has got different merits to be
considered as one of the candidate culture fish species with good adaptive ability, fast growth rate, able to growth
in adverse conditions, diverse feeding habit and preferred by the consumers.
Ethiopia has high potential for developing fish culture both in terms of land/water and suitable agro-ecology with
rich biological diversity of native fish species (Shibru, 2016) including
O. niloticus
. Using geographic information
system, Eshete and Zemenu (2012) reported that quite a large area of the country is suitable for tilapia farming
(e.g from moderately to highly suitable about 886,889 km
2
). Despite the country’s conducive environment for
aquaculture development, fish farming is more of theoretical than actual practice. Limited skilled human power
and lack of aquaculture inputs suppliers particularly fish seed and fish feed are the most important lacking well
adapted practice of fish farming in the country.
Recently researchers from the research institutions and universities are conducting research to evaluate the
performance of candidate aquaculture fish species, to evaluate and formulate fish feeds from locally available feed
ingredients and to adopt some aquaculture practices like mono-sex culture, integration of fish farming with other
agriculture practices etc. (Zenebe et al., 2012; Kassahun et al., 2012; Workagegn and Gjoen, 2012; Adamneh et al.,
2013; Zelalem, 2013; Abelneh et al., 2015). However, the issue of fish seed and fish feed are still major problems
