Effect of stocking density and diet's type on productive performance and economic efficiency of African catfish clarias gariepinus under semi-intensive system

Abstract EN

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the optimum stocking density and diet's type recently used in catfish farms, on both growth performance and economic efficiency of African catfish Clarias gariepinus.

The first experiment tested three different stocking density of catfish with average weight of 46.83 g ± 1.62 at a rate of 4, 8 and 12 catfish/m3 (T1, T2 and T3) in hapas (4 × 6 × 0.80 (in depth) m).

The experiment started on 24 may, 2014 and continued for 186 days.

The results showed that the low stocking T1 was the best in both growth performance and economic efficiency.

The second experiment was conducted in earthen ponds using catfish with average body weight of 56.5 ± 1.05 g to evaluate three types of diets: poultry slaughters wastes (offal and dead chicken) PO, food factories wastes (FF) and artificial feed (AF).

The experiment started on 15 May, 2014 and continued for 210 days.

The results indicated that PO and FF diets were better than AF for economic efficiency and the treatment of PO diet was the best in all treatments in growth performance and economic efficiency.

In conclusion, catfish can be cultured under high stocking density (T3) without causing any problems and the low stocking T1 was the best in both growth performance and economic efficiency in semi-intensive at earthen ponds system.

In addition, using non-traditional diets of poultry slaughter wastes (PO) and wastes of food factory (FF) could be used to reduce the costs of production.