EVALUATION OF LOCALLY MADE FISH CAGE ON THE GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF OREOCHROMIS NILOTICUS (L, 1758)

Abstract

Abstract Aquaculture is now fully comparable to capture fisheries when measured by volume of output on global scale. The contribution of aquaculture to the world total fish production has increased significantly. Aquaculture grew from 25.7% to 42.2 % during the past 12 years. This study was conducted to evaluate the durability, cost effectiveness and growth performance of Oreochromis niloticus in locally made fish cage. Locally available 210d/15 polyamide twine thread for making the body of the cage and bamboo trunk is used for cage frame. For imported cages PVC pipe were used as a floater and sinker frame. Both treatments were in triplicates and Tilapia juveniles with an average weight of 46.2 gm stocked in the treatments. The fish were fed on a composite mixture of wheat bran, brewery waste and “noug” cake in powder form at 2% of their body weight twice per day for six months. The final mean weight of Oreochromis niloticus ranged 74.8 ± 4.9 gm in the locally made cage and 78.6 ± 2.5 gm in the imported cage. The mean daily weight gain was 0.2 ± 0.01gm/ day in both cage systems. The locally made fish cage can replace the costly imported fish cage because the growth performances of Oreochromis niloticus were almost similar (p > 0.05).