Evaluation of Fish Meals as Natural Feed Stimulants on the Feeding Behaviour of Fry and Juveniles of Lates calcarifer (Bloch)

• Main Authors: R.K. SINGH, A.K. BALANGE, P.A. KHANDAGALE, S.L. CHAVAN
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asian Fisheries Society 2006-06-01
• Series: Asian Fisheries Science
• Online Access: https://www.asianfisheriessociety.org/publication/downloadfile.php?id=470&file=Y0dSbUx6QTRPVEUyTmpBd01ERXpOVFU0TWpZMU5EUXVjR1Jt
• ISSN: 0116-6514; 2073-3720

Six purified diets were prepared for this experiment. Five of these six diets contained fish meals of five different fishes namely Bombay duck, Anchovy, Lesser sardine, Ribbon fish and shrimp head as natural stimulants for sea bass fry and juveniles. These five diets were prepared by adding 10% of each stimulant by weight in the purified diet. The sixth diet (F) was without stimulant and considered as control. The experiment was conducted on sea bass fry, 20 (+0.02) mm total length and juvenile, 217 (+0.15) mm total length by using one fish and two fish per tank respectively. The results indicated that Bombay duck meal containing diet i.e. diet ‘A’ has significant stimulating effect on the feeding behaviour of fry and also in juveniles of sea bass although the positive responses were higher in the case of juveniles (30 in case of fry and 34 in case of juveniles). Further, there were 34 positive responses in the case of two juvenile sea bass per tank experiment where as it was 30 in the case of two fry per tank experiment. The feeding responses were significantly different with two fish per tank as compared to one fish per tank showing that the number of fish had an influence on the feeding behaviour of both fry and juveniles. However, no feeding response was observed in the control diet. The study also revealed that Bombay duck meal is better and superior as feeding stimulant over the other fish meals for the Sea bass fry and juveniles.