The Effect of Ammonia Accumulation on Growth and Survival of African Catfish Fingerlings

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ammonia concentration with various levels on the growth and survival rate of African catfish fingerlings and the change of water quality throughout the nursing periods. The experiment was Completely Randomized Design (CRD) 4 treatments each having 4 replications. Treatment 1 did not perform the water exchange and in treatment 2-4, 50 percent of water were exchanged when accumulated ammonia was 1-2, 4-5 and 25-26 mg/L, respectively. The experimental animals aged 15 days. The average initial weight were 0.42±0.03 g. and 3.85±0.11 cm., respectively. The fingerlings were fed floating pellets with 35 percent protein levels. Feeding was done 3 times a days. Nursing was conducted in a plastic tanks containing 50 liters freshwater with 50 fishs per tank. The duration of the experiment was 31 days. The results found that the water exchange at the ammonia levels of 1-2 and 4-5 mg/L, affected the highest growth of the fingerlings and higher than the control. (P≤0.05) Water exchange when ammonia 1-2 mg/L, the survival of fingerlings was higher than that in all experiments. (P≤0.05) This condition also used 15 liters of water per fish, pH between 7.03-7.87, temperature between 28.24-30.03 ºC, alkalinity between 76.67-193.75 mg/L, dissolved oxygen 0-4.85 mg/L and turbidity between 0-51.70 NTU.