Technical and economic evaluation of different nutritional input strategies in fish farming

Abstract EN

This current study aimed to compare the performance of different fertilizers and feeding strategies as nutritional input options in fish farms.

Twelve earthen ponds (1000 m2 each) were assigned randomly into four treatments, with triplicates per treatment.

The four fertilization treatments were: compost (T1); cow manure (T2); compost and urea plus superphosphate (T3); and cow manure and urea plus superphosphate (T4).

Trial ponds stocked with mixed sex tilapia fry and silver carp at rate of (8400 and 100 fish/feddan, respectively).

All treatments feed artificial feed 25% protein at 2% of live body daily after twelve of stocking to end of trial.

Mixed fertilizer treatments (T3 and T4) achieved significantly higher yield than organic fertilizer treatments (T1 and T2).

Total fish yield in decreasing order was T4, T3, T2 and T1 (1559.3, 1539.3, 1402.7 and 1396 kg/feddan/year, respectively.

Feed intake and feed efficiency parameters FE%; PER; PPV% were significantly higher in mixed fertilizers (T3 and T4) than organic fertilizers treatments (T1 and T2).

Of water quality (WQ) parameters only available phosphorus was significantly higher in T 1 compared to the other treatments.

Nutrient utilization estimation indicated that nitrogen utilization efficiency was significantly higher in T3 and T4 compared to T1 and T2.

Phosphorus utilization rate was notably higher in T4 compared to other treatment but with no significant different among treatment.

Partial economic analysis showed that benefit cost ratio was significantly higher (P<0.01) in T3 (54%) and T 4 (49 %) compared to T1 (36.4%) and T2 (25.8%).

The result of this experiment concluded that feeding strategy using mixed fertilizers and supplementary feed as feeding strategy performed better than organic fertilizers and supplementary feed, increased fish yield and farm revenue.