Comparative Study of Monosex Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Production under Different Stocking Density in Ponds

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to study the effect of stocking density on the growth and production of monosex male tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus L.) conducted in six ponds commencing from 7^th July to 4^th November, 2012. Feeding frequency were two times in a day. The mean initial weight of fry in all the treatments were 5.7±0.04 g and after completion of the experiment the mean final weight of tilapia was 321.62±1.11 g for T₁, 300.12±0.87 g for T₂ and 256.25±2.38 g for T₃. The mean weight gain of 315.92±1.11, 294.42±0.87  and 250.552.38g and mean percent weight gain of 5542.40, 5165.20 and 4395.61% and mean FCR was 1.41±0.00, 1.46±0.01 and 1.59±0.00and mean SGRof 3.36, 3.30 and 3.17% and the survival rate was 97.67, 94.25 and 93.40% were recorded in T₁, T₂ and T₃, respectively. The highest weight gain, percent weight gain, SGR and survival rate were found in T₁ and lowest were found in T₃. The production was observed to be 47.12±0.52, 56.57±0.80 and 59.84±1.10 kg/dec/4 months in T₁, T₂ and T₃, respectively. The significant (P?0.01) highest fish production and FCR was obtained 59.84 kg/dec/4 months and 1.59 respectively in T₃ under stocking density was 250 fish/decimal and production, FCR was found to be decreased significantly with the decrease in stocking density. The lowest fish production 47.12 kg/dec/4 months were observed in T₁. Although higher production was obtained in T₃ but individually growth performance of monosex tilapia was higher in T₁.

Keywords: Monosex tilapia, growth performance, stocking density, tilapia production.