The study about bioaccumulation patterns in fish tissues exposed to metals can be used as effective and reliable indicators of environmental metal pollution (Kim et al., 2004). The experimental fish, rockfish accumulated lead from the dietary lead exposure resulting in accumulation in their tissues and redistribution among tissues. The relative accumulation exposed to the dietary lead in specific tissues was: kidney>liver>spleen>intestine>gill>muscle. In the present study, the dietary lead exposure results from a considerable bioaccumulation in specific tissues of rockfish.
The growth rate and reproduction in fish are generally retarded in the response of the exposure to toxicants because the allocation of energy for growth and reproduction transfers to the use to compensate tissue repair (Wendelaar Bonga, 1997). Actually, the metal accumulation at high concentration can induce retarded growth in fish development, which has influence on fish size (Friedmann et al., 1996). The dietary lead exposure caused a significant inhibition of growth of rockfish, and the condition factor was considerably decreased by the lead exposure. The hepatosomatic index in aquatic animals is commonly regarded as a crucial indicator of toxic effects by the metal toxicity exposure (Datta et al., 2007). It was observed that a significant decrease in hepatosomatic index of rockfish exposed to the dietary lead, which is a similar observation with Maceda-Veiga et al. (2012). The dietary lead exposure induces a significantly negative effect on the growth and hepatosomatic index of rockfish.