Our previous study on Nile tilapia illustrated that the number of
offspring that could be collected from biofloc based broodstock tanks
was significantly higher than that of broodstock tanks without BFT
(Ekasari et al., 2013). It is not clear, however, if the application of BFT
only increases the fecundity of the parental generation or that the
biofloc system also supports the survival of the offspring. Only fewstudies
have dealt with the effect of biofloc based systems on fish larvae or seed
rearing (Crab et al., 2010 and Emerenciano et al., 2011). Emerenciano
et al. (2011) attributed the significantly higher survival and growth
of pink shrimp post larvae reared in biofloc systems in comparison to
those reared in clearwater systemto the extra food and nutrients provided
in biofloc systems.
In the present study, it was investigated how biofloc systems
affect the performance of Nile tilapia larvae. Our assessment for the
larval quality included survival and growth, uniformity in size, and
tolerance to stress and disease