International Journal of Aquaculture, 2013, Vol.3, No.6, 23
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29
http://ija.sophiapublisher.com
23
Research Report Open Access
Comparative Study of Maize Bran and Chicken Manure as Fish Feed Supplement:
Effects on Growth Rate of
Oreochromis Niloticus
in Pond Culture Systems
Beaven Utete , Taurai Bere , and Besiline Dzikiti
Chinhoyi University of Technology Department of Wildlife and Safari Management, P. Bag 7724, Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe
Corresponding author email:
beavenu@yahoo.co.uk;
Authors
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2013, Vol.3, No.6 doi: 10.5376/ija.2013.03.0006
Received: 15 Feb., 2013
Accepted: 25 Feb., 2013
Published: 7 Apr., 2013
Copyright © 2013
Beaven. 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
:
Beaven, 2013, Comparative Study of Maize Bran and Chicken Manure as Fish Feed Supplement: Effects on Growth Rate of
Oreochromis Niloticus
in Pond Culture
Systems, International Journal of Aquaculture, Vol.3, No.6 23-29 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2013. 03.0006)
Abstract
Aquaculture is an emerging reasonable answer to overexploitation of wild fish stock as the demand for wild fish stock is
outstripping supply due to several geo-socio-economic reasons. However, productivity and profitability of aquaculture in Zimbabwe
is affected by high costs of fish feeds. This study was done to compare and evaluate the effects of maize bran and chicken manure on
growth of
Oreochromis niloticus
cultured in ponds at Lake Chivero. Three replicate spherical concrete ponds were each applied with
chicken manure, maize bran and others left to be the control ponds. A complete randomized experimental design was used. Fish
sampled from maize bran fed ponds had the highest growth rate, followed by fish fed with chicken manure ponds and, the control
ponds respectively. The use of locally available waste products and feed materials in can be useful in the profitability of
O. niloticus
culture locally as cereal bran such as maize bran is generally cheap and chicken manure are readily available in Zimbabwe. Further
studies should be undertaken on how maize and chicken manure should be applied with proper feeding regimes and ratios to
stimulate algae production as well as to prevent fish mortality.
Keywords
Pond aquaculture; Feed supplement; Growth rate; Tilapia; Survival rate; Lake Chivero
Introduction
Despite numerous efforts from governments and the
donor community, aquaculture production in Africa
has remained miniscule. The aquaculture infrastructure
built in the 1970s and 1980s is in a state of disrepair
in most African countries (FAO, 2004). One of the
major reasons that led to the collapse of the many
aquaculture enterprises is the cost of formulated feed.
Fish feeds represent over 50% of the total variable
production costs (El-Sayed and Kawanna, 2008).
Traditionally, fishmeal has been used as the major
protein source in fish feeds because of its nutritional
value and palatability (Nguyen et al., 2009). However,
due to the limited world supplies and increasing
price of fish meal, the majority of research on
fishmeal replacement with alternative proteins in
fish diets has focused on the use of protein derived
from plant and animal sources (Enami, 2011).
Aquatic plants, grain legumes, animal by-products
and single cell proteins have also been tried in
tilapia diets but with variable results (El-Saidy and
Gaber, 2005; El-Sayed and Kawanna, 2008).
Natural food supply is enhanced by using organic
and inorganic fertilizers and low-cost supplemental
feeds derived from agricultural by-products (Halwart
et al., 2003). It is well known that high fish yield can
be achieved by higher abundance of plankton in
culture system (Jha et al., 2008). Teferi et al. (2000)
found that
Oreochromis niloticus
is essentially
planktivorous, thus any food supplement that favour
plankton growth will result in high yields of
Oreochromis niloticus
.
Organic fertilization practices
using animal wastes such as chicken manure, cattle
dung are widely used in many countries to sustain
productivity at low costs (Hossain et al., 2004) since
soluble organic matter supplied to ponds by using manure
stimulate phytoplankton growth (Sevilleja et al., 2001). It
also increases biomass of zooplankton and benthic
organisms (Solomon et al., 2007). Although organic
fertilizers may be consumed directly or as manure-derived
detritus after heterotrophic microbial activity, the
role of manure or manure-derived detritus as a
source of food for fish is not universally agreed
upon. Recent studies by (McAndrew et al., 2004;
Koprucu and Ozdemir, 2005), suggested that organic
matter from the manure contributed very little to
growth of common carp, silver carp, grass carp and
tilapia hybrids grown in poly culture. Maize bran