Assessing the effect of different feeding frequencies combined with stocking density, initial weight, and dietary protein ratio on the growth performance of tilapia, catfish and carp

Abstract

This review illustrates the relationships among stocking rate, initial weight (W1), dietary protein ratio (CP), specific growth rate (SGR), and feed conversion ratio (FCR) of three freshwater fish species: tilapia, catfish and carp under different feeding frequencies (FF) using the descriptive and statistical analyses. More than 70 previous studies related to the effect of FF on growth performance of fish were reviewed. Means of SGR and FCR in the previous researches were collected and analyzed to derive regression liner, correlation coefficient (R) and determination coefficient (R2). Statistical relations affirmed that FF had statistically significant positive effect on SGR and FCR of tilapia and carp compared to catfish. Moreover, FF can reduce the stress of high density in tilapia ponds, but it can't improve the performance and feed utilization on both catfish and carp. This study concluded that, the optimum feeding frequencies were considered as from four to six, six and two to three feeding times /day on tilapia, carp and catfish, respectively.

Keywords

• Feeding frequency
• Stocking rate
• Initial weight
• Dietary protein ratio
• SGR
• FCR