The study was conducted to assess the growth and reproductive performance of O. shiranus fed on unfermented maize bran (UMB) fermented maize bran (FMB) and commercial floating pellets (CFP) under intermittent harvesting (IM) regime. The fish were reared for a period of 126 days, while daily intermittent harvesting of juveniles started after 54 days of stocking. Harvesting was conducted using two meshed wire fish traps in every pond, set out an hour, before the fish were fed. In experiment I, the final weight of broodstock was not significantly different (p= 0.811) between SB and IM. Furthermore, number of Juveniles produced by broodstock under Single batch harvest (SB) did not differ significantly (p =0.308) from intermittent harvest (IM). In experiment II, the broodstock fed on the CFP recorded a higher final weight of 148.24±16.04g, followed by broodstock fed on UMB (93.46±9.95g) and 89.16±7.86 g from broodstock fed on FMB. However, the final weight on UMB and FMB diets did not differ significantly (p= 0.964). The highest number of Juveniles, at ≈ 8572±495 and a total Juveniles yield of 4162.74±6.94 kg/ha/yr of mean weight of 8.75g were harvested from broodstock fed on CFP diet and ≈ 2157±183 Juveniles and a total Juveniles yield of 848.77±3.56 kgs/ha/yr of mean weight of 4.75g harvested from broodstock fed on UMB. Lowest number of Juveniles of 1717±123 and a total yield of 534.46±1.59 kg/ha/yr of mean weight of 3.67 g was reported from broodstock fed on FMB. This suggests that the use of CFP under IM would produce better results as evidenced by the highest final weight and high number of Juveniles above all treatments and IM is not better off than SB, as the final growth of broodstock and number of juveniles was not significant different among treatments.
Keywords: diets, traps, intermittent, nutrition, Oreochromis shiranus.