EFFECT OF DIFFERENT FEEDING STRATEGIES ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMIC RETURNS OF NILE TILAPIA O. niloticus PRODUCTION IN SEMI-INTENSIVE SYSTEM

Daniel Adjei-Boateng*, Anthony Aliebe, Nelson W. Agbo, Emmanuel A. Frimpong
 
1Department of Fisheries and Watershed Management, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana
 
Corresponding author: daboateng.frnr@knust.edu.gh / adjeibd@gmail.com
 

The production of Nile tilapia in semi-intensive system has been practiced for many years especially in Africa due to Nile Tilapia's ability to utilize natural food produced through pond fertilization. The objective was to find out if tilapia fed at half ration and on alternate days had comparable performance, feed utilization and economic returns to those fed at full ration over 15-week period in fertilized ponds. .

Sex-reversed all-male O. niloticus (~35g) were cultured in fertilized ponds at Tano-Odumasi of the Ashanti Region, Ghana. Seven hundred fish were stocked into each pond (350 m2) with each treatment replicated three times. The fish were fed with commercial feed (30% crude protein) at 5% body weight initially and 2% towards the end of the experiment. Fish growth, feed conversion efficiency and economic returns were considered under the three strategies. Pond water quality variables measured were found to be within suitable range for optimum growth of Nile tilapia.

Results of the study showed no significant differences (P<0.05) in growth performance variables in terms of weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), daily growth rate (DGR) among the treatments. Higher growth of fish observed in the control group were not significantly different (P<0.05) compared to the other treatments. Feed given varied significantly among the feeding strategy and feed conversion ratio was significantly better (P<0.05) in fish group fed on alternate day (0.86) and half ration (0.94) compared to the control group (1.25). Economic analysis showed that profit returns were highest for the alternate day feeding strategy (GH₵ 2,269.41) and least for the full ration feeding strategy (GH₵ 995.88). It is possible to achieve similar fish yield in Nile tilapia semi-intensive production with the reduced feeding strategies and full ration feeding. Alternate day full ration feeding strategy is recommended to tilapia farmers since it proved to be the most profitable strategy.