Dietary acidifiers blend enhanced the production of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), striped mullet (Mugil cephalus), and African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) polycultured in earthen ponds
Clarias gariepinus
Nile tilapia
Mullet
Mugil
DOI:
10.1007/s10499-018-0329-0
Publication Date:
2018-12-15T02:28:18Z
AUTHORS (3)
ABSTRACT
Organic acids and/or their salts could be used as acidifiers to improve the performance, health, and immunity status of aquatic organisms. Generally, a single acidifier is used as a feed additive but the present study used a multiple acidifiers blend (Latibon®), which is a mixture of formic acid (25.7%), lactic acid (11.5%), and citric acid (7.0%). In the present study, each pond (3 acres) of nine earthen ponds was stocked with 15,000 Nile tilapia (NT; 2.1 ± 0.2 g), 3000 striped mullet (SM; 10.7 ± 1.7 g), and 300 African catfish (AC; 218.0 ± 10.3 g) representing a fish biomass of 10.5–11.5, 10.9–11.2, and 5.4–5.5 kg/acre, respectively. Latibon® was incorporated to a floating diet at levels of 0.0 (control), 1.5, and 3.0 g/kg diet. Fish fed one of the tested diets up to apparent satiation for a period of 20 min thrice a day at 9:00, 12:00, and 16:00 h for 28 weeks. At the end of the feeding period, each pond was drained and fish of each cultured species were collected, counted, and group-weighed. No significant difference was observed in fish survival among the different treatments and its range was 92.1–93.4% for NT, 86.2–87.6% for SM, and 87.3–90.3% for AC. The production of NT, SM, and AC increased significantly as levels of Latibon® increased from 0.0 (828.9, 273.9, and 68.2 kg/acre, respectively) to 3.0 g/kg diet (1204.4, 304.3, and 77.8 kg/acre, respectively). The total fish yield in the control ponds was 1171.0 kg/acre, while it was maximized in ponds fed 3.0 g/kg diet of Latibon® (1586.5 kg/acre). This is because fish consumed more feed with increasing the levels of Latibon® from 0.0 (4614.0 kg feed/pond) to 3.0 g/kg diet (6256.0 kg feed/pond) with insignificant differences in feed conversion ratios per ponds (1.34–1.35). Nile tilapia was the target fish; however, its production percentage to the total fish yield was 75.9%, whereas those of SM and AC were 19.2% and 4.9%, respectively, in ponds received 3.0 g/kg of Latibon®. Additionally, in this treatment, the sale of NT represented 62.8% of the total fish sale, whereas these of SM and AC were 34.1 and 3.1%, respectively. The simple economic analysis revealed that the net profit of ponds received 3.0 g/kg diet of Latibon® increased by 23.3% over that received the control diet. Thus, the present study recommends the incorporating of 3.0 g/kg diet of Latibon® to fish diets.
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