PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION OF COPEPOD AS LIVE FEED FOR REARING OF Clarias gariepinus LARVAE

Copepods are a group of small crustaceans found in the sea and nearly every freshwater habitat. A fourteen days culture and rearing of  Clarias gariepinus larvae was conducted in July, 2018. The suitability of the freshwater Copepod was investigated in African catfish larvae, Clarias gariepinus, at the end of yolk sac resorption. This live food was compared to ground Artemia, Coppens, Aller Aqua, Blue Crown and Skilm Milk larval feeds. Six lots of larvae were constituted with three replicates: Copepod, Artemia, Coppens, Aller Aqua, Blue Crown and Skilm Milk. The growth performances, condition factor and survival rates were ascertained as the larvae were sampled    (Table 1 sh

every two days. After a 14 day-experiment, the growth performance of larvae raised on Copepod was comparable to the performance of those raised on Artemia which is the recognized standard feed presently. Under the present experiment conditions, the survival and growth performances of African catfish larvae fed with Copepod approached those obtained

with Artemia and are higher than larvae fed other diets such as Coppens, Aller aqua, Blue Crown and Skilm Milk. The survivals are high at 94 % Artemia which is at 96 % and is higher than other larvae feeds: Coppens (84 %), Aller aqua (86 %), Blue Crown (67 %) and Skilm milk (61 %). These results show that freshwater Copepod proved suitable for first feeding of C. gariepinus larvae (Table 2) could constitute a valuable alternative for larval rearing.