A.P. Chelewani , D. Kassam , V.J.M. Chiwanda

Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries Science, Lilongwe University of Agriculture Natural Resources, P.O. Box 219, Lilongwe, Malawi
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 7   doi: 10.5376/ija.2016.06.0007
Received: 11 Sep., 2016    Accepted: 28 Oct., 2016    Published: 23 Nov., 2016

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Chelewani A.P., Kassam D., and Chiwanda V.J.M., 2016, Assessment of growth and survival rates of African catfish (Clarias gariepinus Burchell 1822) fry fed on soybean milk-based diets, International Journal of Aquaculture, 6(7): 1-10 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2016.06.0007)

African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) has higher potential yield than tilapia species farmed in Malawi. However, production is hindered by shortage of fingerlings due to mass mortality at fry stage attributed to poor feeding. A 42-day feeding trial was conducted at Bunda fish farm (14°10'25.6"S 33°48'21.6"E) of the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Lilongwe, Malawi to assess growth and survival rates of African catfish fry fed on soymilk based diets. In this experiment, four thousand five hundred fry (average weight; 0.0288 g ±0.0068) were fed on two soymilk based diets and an egg yolk based control diet, each replicated thrice. Significantly higher percent weight gain and specific growth rate was observed in fry fed on egg yolk based diets and diets based on soymilk from roasted soybeans compared to fry fed on diets based on soymilk prepared from raw beans. No significant differences were observed between catfish fry fed on egg yolk based diets and catfish fry fed on diets based on soymilk from roasted soybeans. Survival percentage was highest (42.46±5.93558) in fry fed on a diet based on soymilk from roasted soybeans. This was found to be significantly higher (P=0.05) than survival percentage of fry fed on egg yolk based diet (18.33±3.0118). No significant differences in survival rate (%) were recorded in fry fed on diets based on soymilk from roasted soybeans and soymilk from raw soybeans (36.93±5.42873). The results demonstrate that diets based on soymilk from roasted soybeans can be used to improve survival of African catfish fry and improve fingerling production, the biggest bottleneck in African catfish production in Malawi.

African catfish; Clarias gariepinus; Soymilk-based; Fry stage; Growth rate; Survival rate