ISSN: 2474-8846
Authors: Abu OMG* and Nwanoniwu BC
Investigation was done in the growth performance and survival of catfish larvae using five treatments at the hatchery unit of the Department of Fisheries, University of Port Harcourt. The treatments were T1 (50% Acartia and 50% Artemia) T2 (25 Acartia and 75 Artemia) T3 (75 Acartia and 25 Artemia), T4 (100% Acartia) and control (100% Artemia). They were applied in triplicate. 200 larvae were transferred to 15 experimental tanks after their exogenous feeding, and the application of treatments (feed) started 12 hours after stocking. Feeding was done three times a day at 7am, 1pm and 7pm. At the end of the experiment which lasted for 15 days, control (0.135g±0.173) and T2 had the highest weight gain (0.033g±0.0022) while T4 (0.022g±0.002) had the least. The highest in length gain was in T2 (1.0838cm±0.0578) while T4 (0.906acm±0.130) had the least. For survival rate control (75.50% ±2.2039) and T2 (75.40%a±1.250) were the highest while T4 (39.625%a±3.148) was the least the values for the specific growth rate shows that T2 had the best performance while control had the least. From the research findings Treatment two (25% Acartia and 75% Artemia) and treatment three (75 Artemia and 25 Acartia) gave the same level of performance with the control in terms of length gain, survival and growth.
Keywords: Catfish; Live Feed; Acartia; Artemia; Aquaculture
