The Effect of Water Temperature on Growth and Survival of Largemouth Bass during Feed Training

Abstract

AbstractWater temperature could be an important factor during the feed training phase of largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides production, as it could affect appetite and starvation time. We evaluated three water temperatures during largemouth bass feed training. Pond‐reared largemouth bass fingerlings (weight = 2.1 ± 0.6 g [mean ± SE]) were randomly stocked into twelve 0.5‐m3 polyethylene cages to achieve a stocking density of 350 fish per cage. The cages were suspended in six 3,800‐L polyethylene tanks with a common water source housed in a greenhouse with four replicate cages per water temperature treatment (20, 24, and 28°C). Each tank contained two cages, and there were two tanks per treatment temperature. In each cage, fingerlings were initially fed freeze‐dried krill, then gradually weaned onto a commercial pellet (floating trout feed; 1.5 mm) over a 24‐d period according to an established training protocol. At harvest, the average weight and the percentage of fish successfully trained to commercial feed were significantly different among temperatures (P ≤ 0.05), increasing as water temperature increased (weights averaged 5.4, 6.8, and 7.8 g and percent trained averaged 70, 82, and 90% for fish feed‐trained at 20, 24, and 28°C, respectively). The results from this experiment indicate that water temperature has a significant effect on feed training success and the average weight of feed trained largemouth bass.