International Journal of Aquaculture, 2018, Vol.8, No.21, 156-160
156
Research Report Open Access
Nutrient Requirement of African Sneakhead Fish (
Parachanna obscura
,
Gunther 1861): a Review
Juste Vital Vodounnou
1
, Diane N.S. Kpogue
2
, Jule Zounon
1
, Wilfried Sintondji
1
, Emile D. Fiogbe
1
1 University of Abomey-Calavi, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Laboratory of Research in the Wetlands 01 BP 526 Cotonou, Benin
2 National University of Agriculture, BP 43 Ketou, Benin
Corresponding author Email
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2018, Vol.8, No.21 doi
Received: 25 Jun., 2018
Accepted: 24 Jul., 2018
Published: 31 Aug., 2018
Copyright © 2018
Vodounnou 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
:
Vodounnou J.V., Kpogue D.N.S., Zounon J., Sintondji W., and Fiogbe E.D., 2018, Nutrient requirement of African sneakhead fish (
Parachanna obscura
,
Gunther 1861): a review, International Journal of Aquaculture, 8(21): 156-160 (doi
Abstract
The domestication of new species in aquaculture, strongly contributed to the promotion of the aquaculture in the recent
years. Fish need lipids, energy, protein vitamins and minerals in their feed for to insure growth, reproduction, and other physiological
functions. Several studies have been made on
P. obscura
in sight of its domestication. Dietary protein requirement, dietary lipid
requirement and dietary carbohydrate requirement of
P. obscura
were previously studied. The aim of this study is to make a
bibliographical on the nutrient requirements of the African snakehead fish (
P. obscura
) in order to promote
P. obscura
rearing.
Protein requirements of
P. obscura
larvae are between 45 and 55.5% whereas for fingerlings are 42.5 and 53.5% of the diet. The
optimal carbohydrate requirement of
P. obscura
fingerlings is 12% of diet and maximum crude lipid is 7% of the diet.
Keywords
Parachanna obscura
; Protein requirements; Carbohydrate requirements; Lipid requirements
Background
Aquaculture is an important part of agriculture because it generates products (fishes, crustaceans, mollusks, algae)
of same nature than those issued from natural marine and continental fisheries (Naylor et al., 2000; Pauly et al.,
2002; Priyadarshini et al., 2015; Adewole and Faturoti, 2017; Adamneh and Abelneh, 2018). As marginal in
relation to natural fishery volume until 1970s, aquaculture has developed explosively from middle 1980s and now
represents the agricultural production with the highest growth rate during the last fifteen years on the world scale
(14% yearly between 1990 and 2000 against 2.8% for terrestrial animal productions in the same period) (El-Sayed,
1994; Ramachandran et al., 2005). The domestication of new species in aquaculture, strongly contributed to the
promotion of the aquaculture the last years. The domestication of a new fish species is done by the control of its
environment, its reproduction and its feed. The control of the feeding is done by the determination of the
nutritional requirements on the quantitative level and the qualitative level (Kpogue, 2013a; Olufeagba et al., 2017;
Vodounnou et al., 2017). Fish rearing requires the knowledge of the requirements in proteins, lipid, energy and
vitamins of the species in order to ensure a good growth to him. These diets vary according to the species, the
stage of development, stage of life, sex, age and the environment (Reinitz, 1983; Rembold and Fluchter, 1988).
The feed for cultured fish can come from various natural sources, such as the plankton, bacteria, insects and other
fish in the ecosystem, and artificial feed (Mgbenka and Lovell, 1985; Miwa and Innui, 1987).
Parachanna obscura
is found in West African country and central African country (Kumar et al., 2012). African
snakehead,
P. obscura
flesh is very much appreciated by African consumers. It has high economic value for
aquaculture since it has better growth rate (2 g/day), few bones, tasty flesh, accepts high stocking density and can
use the atmospheric oxygen for respiration (Micha, 1974; Victor and Akpocha, 1992; Bolaji et al., 2011). It is a
species having resistance to the stresses and is the most widespread species among all the species of African
Chanidae (Bonou and Teugels, 1985). Several studies have been made on
P. obscura
in spite of its domestication.
Dietary protein and lipid requirement, feeding rate, optimum stocking density and semi artificial reproduction
of
P. obscura
were extensively investigated (Kpogue and Fiogbe, 2012a; 2012b; Kpogue et al., 2013a;
Vodounnou et al., 2017). The aim of the study is to make a bibliographical sketch on the nutrient requirement of
the African snakehead fish (
P. obscura
) in order to promote
P. obscura
rearing.
