Abstract
Feed is the main cost to aquaculture production, management practices, and feeding strategies are aimed at optimizing feed intake and efficiency. Knowledge about feeding protocols and behavior habits may be of an interest for optimization of aquaculture production, reducing aquaculture waste output and to achieve sustainability. This study investigated trends based on daily feeding schedules. Two growth trials were conducted to investigate the effect of day to day mixed feeding schedules on the growth performance of Nile tilapia. Three experimental isocaloric diets of low (A; 20%), regular feeding (RF; 30%) and high (B; 40%) protein levels were prepared. In the first trial, fish were continuously fed a normal protein diet (RF-30%), alternate feeding of a 1-day diet A; followed by a 1-day diet B (1A/1B) and alternate feeding of 2-day diet A; followed by a 2-day diet B (2A/2B) and a 3-day diet A followed by a 3-day diet B (3A/3B) were tested. In the second trial, three times a day feeding schedules were continuously examined by feeding tilapia with diet (RF), alternate feeding of diet A in the morning followed by diet B in the afternoon (A am/B pm) and alternate feeding of diet B in the morning followed by diet A in the afternoon (B am/A pm). In the first trial, the best specific growth rate (SGR) was observed for fry maintained on the RF diet followed by (2A/2B). In the second trial, the mixed feeding schedule (A am/B pm) showed the best SGR and feed conversion ratio (FCR) followed by a RF diet. The overall ranking of daily mixed feeding schedules was the highest for RF diet with the mixed feeding schedule of (3A/3B). In addition, day to day mixed feeding schedules showed that fish utilize high protein diet more efficiently during an afternoon phase rather than a morning phase. The results from this study show that, the daily feeding schedule achieved better growth performance, nutrients retention and feed utilization of Nile tilapia rather than alternate feeding schedules between days for Nile tilapia.
Highlights
Nutrition constitutes more than 50% of the total production costs in intensive fish culture systems [1,2,3]
Fish maintained on feeding schedules with constant protein content (RF) and feeding schedule 2A/2B followed by the daily feeding schedule 3A/3B showed a significantly better growth performance and nutrient retention
The best significant feed conversion ratio (FCR) for tilapia fry was recorded for regular feeding (RF) and the worst FCR was observed for 1A/1B
Summary
Nutrition constitutes more than 50% of the total production costs in intensive fish culture systems [1,2,3]. Considerable efforts have been directed towards the evaluation of protein sources that could provide an alternative to an expensive fish meal in formulated feeds for farmed fish [4,5,6,7,8]. The above observations led De Silva [9] to hypothesize that when the fish are provided with a high protein diet throughout the rearing period it might not be able to utilize the feed effectively to the same degree, day after day This hypothesis was tested in many cultured species including Nile tilapia [9,15,16,17], common carp [18,19,20,21], Catla Catla [22], Channa striata [23] and silver carp [24]. The objectives of this study were: 1) re-evaluate the effect of mixed feeding schedules on optimized feed utilization by ensuring that the formulation, ingredients origin and chemical composition of the tested diets similar to the regular feeding (RF) diet composition, and 2) test the effects of different mixed feeding schedule within-day on growth performance and feed utilization
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