DESEMPENHO PRODUTIVO DE TILÁPIAS EM VIVEIROS INTERMITENTEMENTE DRENADOS PARA IRRIGAÇÃO

Abstract

The experiment was carried out to determine the effect of intermittently drain tilapia ponds for vegetable irrigation. A completely randomized design in a factorial arrangement 2X3, with three replications was used in this experiment. The first factor was kind of feed: feed 1 - without animal ingredients; feed 2 - with the inclusion of shrimp meal; and feed 3 - with the inclusion of fish meal. The second factor was pond drainage scheme, where in the scheme 1, ponds were intermittently drained for irrigation and subsequently refilled; and in the scheme 2, ponds were not drained. Sexually reversed Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) with average weight of 1.66 g were randomly stocked at the experimental ponds, with thirty five fish per tank, in a stock density of 1.25 fish per m2. Fish were fed two times a day in a proportion of 5% of body weight. There was a significant effect for tank drainage scheme for the variables feed conversion ratio and survival (P0.05) on the interaction between kind of feed and tank drainage scheme for any of the studied variables. Feed type and pond drainage scheme had no effect on weight gain (P>0.05). Therefore, it can conclude that intermittently drained fish ponds, for irrigation, results in the best tilapia's performance in terms of feed convertion and survival.