World Aquaculture Singapore 2022

November 29 - December 2, 2022

Singapore

FORMULATION OF FEEDS FOR GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND COLOUR PIGMENTATION IN FLOWERHORN CICHLID AND RANCHU GOLDFISH

Fanny Yasumaru*, Bo Kai Ng, Timothy Tan, Joel Ho, Diana Chan

 

Aquaculture Innovation Centre

Temasek Polytechnic

21 Tampines Avenue 1

529757, Singapore

fanny_yasumaru@tp.edu.sg

 



An 8-week feeding trial was conducted to compared growth performance and head circumference of Flowerhorn and growth performance and pigmentation of Ranchu fed with three (A, H, S) commercial feeds, respectively. Weight and size measurement of the head of each male Flowerhorn and the belly or roundness of each male Ranchu, in addition to colour scoring were taken at the beginning and after four and eight weeks of study. Flowerhorn were individually housed in 120-L tanks and three Ranchu goldfish were housed per tank. Each commercial feed was tested in triplicate tanks. All fish were fed to satiation twice a day and uneaten feed removed, dried, and weighed to calculate the feed intake. Based on the weight and size measurement results, commercial feed S for Flowerhorn presented the best growth among the three commercial feeds. Feed S also resulted in highest growth in length, specific growth rate (SGR), weight gain, lowest feed conversion rate (FCR). Despite having lower head circumference growth than feed A, feed S has shown to have lower standard deviation in the head circumference growth. In terms of the width growth (from crown to base of fish body), feed S has shown to have the lowest growth, but again with much lower standard deviation as compared to the other two feeds. For the Ranchu, feed H presented the best growth performance among the three commercial feeds tested. Feed H has also shown to achieve the highest belly growth, length growth, body circumference growth, roundness growth, specific growth rate (SGR), weight gain and lowest feed conversion rate (FCR). Nevertheless, in terms of colour development in Ranchu, feed S has shown to achieve the highest increase in relative luminance. Based on the results of this feeding trial, feeds have been formulated using alternative feed ingredients and produced in our facilities to be tested in Flowerhorn and Ranchu aiming at growth performance and pigmentation. Feeding trials are currently under way.