Influence of interaction between feeding schedule and long-term starvation on biological indicators, intestine histological and body biochemical of Nile tilapia(Oreochromis niloticus) fry

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Aquaculture and Biotechnology, Faculty of Aquaculture and Marine Fisheries, Arish University, Arish, Egypt

2 Department of Marine Environment, Faculty of Aquaculture and Marine Fisheries, Arish University, Arish, Egypt

Abstract

A-60-day factorial trial 3x2 was conducted to evaluate the responses of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) fry to compensatory growth after long-term starvation under different feeding rates.  Groups were performed in duplicated as the following GI7, GI10: fry were fed every day with feeding rates of 7% and 10%. GII7, GII10: fry fed for three weeks and fasted a week with feeding rates of 7 and 10%, and groups GIII7, and GIII10 fry fed two weeks and fasted two weeks during the experimental period. 120 fry with an average initial weight of 1.98 ± 0.16 g and were randomly divided into 12 plastic tanks (54 × 38 × 28 cm: L × W × H) with a rate of 10 fry/tank. A commercial artificial feed (30% protein) was used. Water was exchanged at a rate of 50% of the water volume weekly. The results showed that feeding rate levels (from 7% to 10%) did not significantly affect growth or feed utilization parameters and histological of the liver and intestine. Statistical analysis of the effect of long-term feeding restriction on growth performance showed no significant differences between GI that fed every day and GII that fed 3 weeks (per month) wherein GII had better histological characteristics in their intestine but groups GIII 7, 10 that fed two weeks and fasted two weeks had the lowest performance regardless the feeding rate. In addition, interaction between feeding rate and long-term restriction on growth performance showed that GI10 was the best followed by GII7. Thus, this study suggests that GII7 fed 3 weeks and fasting a week with a feeding rate of 7% was the best in terms of feed conversion ratio and intestinal histological.

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