THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT FEEDING PREQUENCIES TOWARD SURVIVAL AND GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF SNAKEHEAD (Channa striata) FRY REARED IN AQUARIA

Abstract

The present study is aimed at determining the best feeding frequency for Snakehead (Channa striata) fry fed with commercial pellets in term of survival rate, growth performance and body proximate composition. Sampling and measurement were carried out in the Fish Hatchery Center of Sungai Batang located in Kapuas District of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. A total of 432 wild Snakehead fry (3-5 cm total length and 0.38-1.15 g weight) subjected to different feeding frequencies were investigated in 12 glass aquaria. A completely randomized design was used as the experimental design with four treatments and three replications. The treatments A: 3 times a day (control), B: 4 times a day, C: 5 times a day, and D: 6 times a day. The results revealed that the best performance for the fry was given by treatment D in term of survival rate (99.07  1.60%), daily length growth (14.90  0.03%), daily weight growth (14.89  0.20%), feeding efficiency (41.20 ± 1.23%), feed conversion ratio (2.34 ± 0.07), protein retention (7.92 ± 1.44%) and fat retention (1.77 ± 1.23%). The Snakehead fry grew negatively allometric (b = 1.43) and the condition factor ranged of 0.93-1.09, indicating the fry were in good condition. Water quality parameters were in tolerance range for the fry rearing period: temperature was 28.2 - 28.5 ºC, pH 6.3 - 7.5, DO 4.3 - 5.5 mg L-1, and Ammonia 0.00 - 0.01 mg L-1 . The outcome of research could be beneficial for better feeding management strategy. Key words: Feeding frequency, Snakehead fry, survival rate, growth performances.