Effects of different Forms of feeds on fecundity of freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii

Four different forms of maturation diet for freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii were tested to determine their effect on the fecundity and eggs quality. Two types of dry pellet form (Dry basic, DB & Dry mixed, DM), semi-moist feed (SM) and fresh feed (FD) form were used in this study. Diet DB, DM and SM were formulated to be isonitrogenous (45%) and isolipidic (9%). Fresh feed was used as a control diet. The study was conducted in 10 ton fiberglass tanks with two replicate tanks for each diet. A total of 30 female broodstocks in the range of 17 - 42 g were used in each tank. The feeding trial for females was conducted for 24 days prior to 10 pieces of male broodstock were introduced in each tank for mating. Results showed that the FD form gave the best performance compared to the other diets for the percentage of berried female, fecundity and quality of eggs. The percentage of berried female produced for broodstocks fed with FD, DM, DB and SM were 76.7%, 61.7%, 48.3% and 46.7%, respectively. Data of larval fecundity shows that broodstocks fed with FD gave the best result of 1219 ± 214 larvae/g female which was not significantly different compared to diet SM and DB with the value of 1155 ± 130 and 951 ± 140 larvae/ g female (Fig .1). Eggs quality in terms size indicated that the highest length was obtained from broodstock fed the FD diet. However, the average volume of eggs from broodstock fed SM showed significantly larger size than other diets (P<0.05)(Fig. 2). In conclusion, the fresh feed gave the best outcome for larvae fecundity and length, thus the investigation on its nutritional content will be conducted in order to increase the performance of pelleted feed.