Abstract
An experimental trial for 120 days was conducted to optimize the stocking density of the fish in a recirculatory bio floc- integrated nutrient film technique (BFT-NFT) aquaponic system using GIFT (Oreochromis niloticus) and Bell pepper (Capsicum annum). The experiment followed Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three treatments and a control in triplicates. The treatments were BFT-NFT aquaponics with different stocking densities of fish, such as 150 no/m3 (T1), 250 no/m3 (T2) and 350 no/m3 (T3), and control (C) was conventional NFT aquaponics without bio floc with a stocking density 150 no/m3 . All the treatments, as well as the control, were maintained with the same plant density of 12 nos/m2 . Fish with an average body weight of 1.44±0.12 g and bell pepper with plant height of 10.16±0.17 cm were used for the study. The result demonstrated that the treatment group with bio floc integrated NFT performed better (p<0.05) in terms of production of both plant and fish compared to control. The control (C) showed significantly higher FCRplant (0.49±0.04) and lower Plant-fish revenue ratio (PFRR) (0.03±0.010) compared to the treatment groups (p<0.05). Among the different treatment groups, better fish mean body weight (80.55 g), specific growth rate (3.44% day-1), and feed conversion ratio, (1.1) were observed in T1. The result of the present study suggests that the integration of Biofloc technology with aquaponics has the potential to enhance plant and fish growth, thereby utilizing aquaculture discharge for agricultural crop production. A stocking density of fish at the rate of 150/m3 and plant density of 12 no. /m2 is ideal for an integrated Biofloc NFT aquaponics system.
Published Version
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