Comparative study on the growth performance of the hybrid catfish <i>Heteroclarias clariidae</i> reared in concrete and earthen ponds

Abstract

Growth performance of the hybrid catfish Heteroclarias reared in concrete and earthen pond systems were investigated in a 92-day experiment. Experiment was conducted using four rectangular ponds (2 concrete and 2 earthen) each measuring 14 × 6 × 1.5 metres in duplicates. The ponds were uniformly limed, fertilized and stocked with 1,000 fingerlings each averaging 10cm and 40g (±2.0). Fish were fed at 5% body weight (BW) daily and randomly sampled monthly. Results indicated that the mean length gain, mean weight gain, relative growth rate, specific growth rate and mean condition factor were 20.59cm, 283.8g, 946%, 8.5%/day and 0.8 respectively for fishes reared in concrete ponds and 28.72cm, 623.4g, 2178%, 11.5%/day and 1.75 respectively for fishes reared in earthen ponds. All the indices of growth analysed showed a higher significant value (P<0.05) in fishes reared in earthen ponds than those reared in concrete ponds.

Keywords: Concrete, earthen pond, growth, performance, Heteroclarias