Nutrient-rich effluents from aquaculture can be reused to enhance the development of natural food to feed fish in periphyton-based systems. A periphyton-based system is a strategy to increase fish farming efficiency, reducing feed use and effluent disposal.
This study aimed to evaluate different types of feeding restriction management in periphyton-based systems to produce Nile tilapia in ponds. To do this, two new production models were compared: (P100-0) Nile tilapia fed 100% of the recommended amount of feed sharing effluent with a tilapia production in a periphyton-based system with no feed input, and (P50-0) Nile tilapia fed 50% of feed plus periphyton sharing effluent with a tilapia production in a periphyton-based system with no feed input.
Biomass gain and productivity were significantly higher in P100-0 than in P50-0, and no differences in the feed conversion ratio and survival were found. For both production models, fish fed with feed and periphyton-based fed corresponded, respectively, to 75% and 25% of the total productivity of each model. The tilapia growth performance indicates that the proposed production models are promising strategies for using natural food in a periphyton-based system and reusing effluents from monocultures, especially when inputting a high amount of nutrients as in P100-0.