RESEARCH ON PRODUCTION OF HIGH QUALITY MILKFISH Chanos chanos SEED IN SMALL SCALE HATCHERIES AT NORTH BALI

Titiek Aslianti * and Afifah Nasukha
 
Institute for Mariculture Research and Aquaculture Development (IMRAD)
PO Box 140 Singaraja 81101
Telp. (+62) (362) 92278 Fax. (+62) (362) 92349
e-mail : tiaspriyono@yahoo.com

 

 

      Low quality of milkfish seed (Chanos chanos) produced by indicated slow growing process and this is leads to decrease in aquaculture production. To anticipate this problem, increasing seed quality by improving seed production process had been conducted. The research was carried out in five units of small scale hatcheries, using three outdoor yellow-concrete tanks with a capacity of 6 m3 each. Each tank was filled with an optimal density of 100,000 eggs. The research was repeated in three cycles. Larvae were reared in accordance with the 2013 rearing standard procedures. Before rearing, the eggs were desinfected using 50 ppm of iodine for 20 minutes. The rearing water was added with 2 ppm of molasses as a stimulant, started on D2 (2 days after hatching) until harvested on D16-18. Feeding regime was adapted to the growth of larvae. The results showed that the range of survival rate of larvae was 86-89% with total lenghts of 12-14 mm, which is  similar to the standard export quality (Table 1.).

The larvae had proportional performance, was actively swiming and responsive. The condition of the back bone was on transition stage from cartilage to bone. Each tank produced 64,000-80,000 milkfish seeds. This results were better than previous seed production which produced only 32,500-39,000 seeds, low survival rate 61.54 - 63.57%, with the total lenght varied from 10 to 11.8 mm, and the bone condition was still fully cartilage. Based on the growth rate, survival rate, seed performance and condition of the backbone resulted from this research showed that small scale hatcheries could produce high quality of milkfish seed by improving larval rearing environment that would be lead to the increase of aquaculture production.