Growth and survival of hatchery-produced and feed-weaned striped murrel Channa striata (Bloch, 1793) fingerlings in cement tanks

Abstract

The growth and survival of hatchery produced and feed weaned fingerlings of striped murrel Channa striata (Bloch, 1793) was estimated in cement tanks in a subtropical climate. Each tank was stocked with 215 fingerlings (20 fingerlings m-3) of length 6.7+1.0 cm and weight 2.21+1.05 g and fed exclusively on commercial floating pellet diets of two grades (crude protein CP 40-45%, lipid 8-10% and fibre 3-5%). Fish attained a total length of 28.0±2.8 cm and weight 202.7±59.1 g with 85% survival in 330 days of rearing in a subtropical climate in freshwater having a temperature regime of 15±1.5 to 29±2.5ᵒC. The estimated fish biomass was 3.5 kg m-3, which was found exceptionally high. ‘W’ values were found to follow Fulton’s cube law with exponent ‘b’, ‘R2’ and ‘K’ in the range 2.072-3.216, 0.776-0.943 and 0.715-0.915 respectively. The values of b, R2 and K were found size and temperature dependent. The present study revealed that cannibalism in this species could be controlled to a negligible level with hatchery produced and feed weaned fingerlings. Keywords: Condition factor, Growth, LWR, Production, Survival