The food and feeding of marine finfish in floating net cages at the National Seafarming Development Centre, Lampung, Indonesia: rabbitfish, Siganus canaliculatus (Park)

Abstract

Abstract. A 100-day cage feeding trial was conducted with juvenile pearl spotted rabbitfish, Siganus canaliculatus (Park), so as to test eight different dietary feeding regimes, namely: no exogenous feeding (NF), frozen fish Leiognathus splendens (Cuvier; FF), live seaweed Eucheuma cottoni (EC), live seaweed Gracilaria lichenoides (GL), commercial broiler starter crumble (BS), commercial carp starter pellet (CP), in-house prepared dry pellét RDl (RDl) and in-house prepared dry pellet RD2 (RD2). The best growth and feed efficiency was observed for rabbitfish fed a dry in-house crumble containing 31% crude protein (diet RDl), followed by fish fed FF, CP, BS, and RD2. By contrast, all fish fed live seaweed displayed a negative growth response over the 100-day trial period. Interestingly, all rabbitfish fed formulated rations displayed marked sexual activity by the end of the feeding trial; 62-93% of the fish (50-100g in weight) yielding milt or eggs on hand stripping. The results are analysed from an economic viewpoint and discussed on the basis of other published studies.