International Journal of Aquaculture, 2015, Vol.5, No.22, 1
-
7
1
A Letter Open Access
Intensive Cage Culture of Nile tilapia in River Nile Systems Canals in Egypt
El-Saidy D. M. S. D.
Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Minufiya, Shebin El-Kom, Egypt
Corresponding author Email
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2015, Vol.5, No.22 doi
Received: 09 May, 2015
Accepted: 07 Jun., 2015
Published: 24 Jul., 2015
Copyright © 2015
El-Saidy D. M. S. D., 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
:
El-Saidy D. M. S. D., 2015, Intensive Cage Culture of Nile tilapia in River Nile Systems Canals in Egypt, International Journal of Aquaculture, 5(22): 1-7
Abstract
A 28-week rearing trial was conducted in twelve one cubic meter cages with (30.2
3.2 g/fish) Nile tilapia,
Oreochromis
niloticus mono sex males
fingerlings, to test the feasibility of rearing Nile tilapia mono sex in floating cages placed in the River Nile
systems, to find out the optimum stocking density per m
3
that could give maximum yield of market-size fish, also, the weight and
length of fish at stocking and to determine the physico-chemical characteristics of the water of El-Bagoria canals at El-Hamoul,
Menoufiya governate. Fish were fed a least cost diet containing 30.2% crude protein and 4600 kcal /kg diet. The results revealed that
Nile tilapia average weight 30.2 g/fish with 150 fish /m
3
as stocking density were adequate for rearing. These fish gave the best both
of average weight gain of 117 g/fish and total production of 22.1 kg/m
3
. The artificial food supplied with a crude protein content of
30.2 % is adequate for rearing Nile tilapia in running water systems. The physico-chemical property of the water of El-Bagoria canals
was found to be adequate for rearing of Nile tilapia in cages.
Keywords
Nile tilapia; Stocking density; Intensive cage culture; Feed utilization
Introduction
The tilapina fish, which have received considerable
attention in many countries because of their good
aquaculture potential, are widely distributed in Egypt.
Among all the species of fish referred by the common
name tilapia,
Oreochromis niloticus
L. is by far the
most important. Because Egypt has a great potential
for aquaculture development, the initiation of aquaculture
seems to be one means of providing cheap animal
protein to the Egeptian people. The current increasing
market demand for fish protein in Egypt can be met
only when the capture fishery is supplemented by
aquaculture. Over the past 30 years,
O. niloticus
has
been distributed throughout the world and has become
the mainstay of tilapia farming in many countries at
all levels, ranging from subsistence to highly intensive
farming systems. The importance of
O. niloticus
stems
from biological reasons (fast growth, short food chain,
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). However,
the determination of stocking density for cultured
tilapia is essential for the maximization of its production,
profitability and sustainability (Daungsawasdi et al.,
1986 and El-Sayed, 2002).
This is because stocking density is considered to be
one of the important factors that affects fish growth,
feed utilization and the gross fish yield (Liu and
Chang, 1992). In many cultivated fish species, growth
is inversely related to stocking density and this is
mainly attributed to social interactions (Haylor, 1991
and Silva, et al., 2000). (Canario et al., 1998) studied
the effective stocking density (0.35, 1.3, and 3.2
Kg/m
3
) for the growth of giltheald sea bream,
Sparus
aurata
, and found that fish in the highest density
group grew 25% slower than fish in slower density
(0.7, 1.1, 1.5 and 1.8 Kg/m
3
) on the growth of turbot,
Scophthalmus maximus
for 45 days, and found that the
stocking inversely affected the growth rate and mean
weights. (Silva et al., 2000) also studied the effect of
stocking density (2, 3 and 4 Kg/m
3
) on the growth of
tetra hybrid red tilapia, and found that the final body
weight gain was significantly higher at a density of 2
and 3 Kg/m
3
,while the largest biomass and feed
consumption were observed at a density of 4 Kg/m
3
.
Moreover, studies on the other fish species showed an
inverse relationship between stocking density and
growth parameters, which were considered to be a
density-dependent category, such as the cases found
