Adejoke A. Adewumi
A feeding trial, involving the use of five different starter diets for the feeding of C. gariepinus fry, was carried out in the laboratory. The diets consist of decapsulated Artemia (D1), cultured live Moena micrura (D2), mixed cultured live M. micrura/Artemia (D3), fishmeal (D4) and powdered milk (D5). Each treatment was applied to 50 post yolkabsorbed fry, in triplicate bowls, for eight days. Even though the length gain, condition factor and specific growth rate were not significantly different (p<0.05) from one another, the percentage weight gain and survival of the larvae fed D1, D2 and D3 were significantly different (p>0.05) from the other dietary treatments. The use of M. micrura (treatment D2) is highly recommended as live food in the hatchery production of the Clarias gariepinus fish.The zooplankton is easily cultivable in freshwater, its bio-nutrients are readily available/utilizable by the fry and the procurement is highly economical. This technology also reuses livestock wastes for production thus contributing towards climate change mitigation and making aquaculture sustainable.
