Effect of night feeding on growth performance and protein utilities of african catfish (clarias gariepinus)

Abstract

This study aimed the effect of night feeding on Clarias gariepinus were tested under 2 types of feeding session and 2 types of feeding frequency. The treatment 1 was the fish where fed twice at night, treatment two has the fish fed three times at night and in treatment 3, the fish were fed twice at day. The influence of night feeding on weight gain, feed consumed, protein composition and nutrient utilization were estimated. The fish fed at day show higher weight gain (23.854g) compared the fish fed at night (19.953 g in treatment 1 and 20.392 g in treatment 2) but low in protein composition (57.16 % in treatment 3) and nutrient utilization. However, no significant different observed in term of final body weight in Duncan's Analysis. The higher weight gain affected by water temperature and stocking densities. The protein composition in body found higher in treatment 1 which fed twice at night (70.91 %) and this result related to the metabolism and behavior of fishes at night. The fishes fed at night with 3 times feeding frequency did not show any significant different with fish fed twice at night even thought higher digestibility observed (83.38%). The study concluded that night feeding with two times feeding frequency was the best to both growth rate and protein utilities for C. gariepinus