Fishes Rearing and Feeding Trials
Channa striatus grow-outs were hatchery bred at NBFGR,
Lucknow and shifted to the wet laboratory and fishes were
acclimated to laboratory conditions in a 1,000 l capacity
FRP tank, feeding on crumbled pellets containing a minimum
of 500 g/kg crude protein for 1 week. Further, fishes
were accustomed to aerated, 300 l capacity plastic pools
with two-thirds filled with water and covered with plastic
covers. Four hundred twenty grow-outs (mean initial
weight 27.36 ± 0.09 to 32.54 ± 0.41 g) were randomly
distributed into 21 plastic pools containing about 200 l of
water. The fishes were fed twice a day at 1,000 and 1,700 h
ad libitum per day. The weighing of fishes during and on
termination of the experimentation was done as determined
by [8]. All pools were covered with plastic perforated
covers throughout the experiment, to prevent fishes from
jumping out. Rearing pools were cleaned every second day
and about half of the water was replaced with fresh bore
well water to reduce the nitrogenous waste accumulated.
Fishes were weighed individually at the beginning and end