Abstract

MARENGONI, N.G. et al. Performance and sexual proportion in red tilapia under inclusion of probiotic in mesohaline water. Arch. zootec. [online]. 2010, vol.59, n.227, pp.403-414. ISSN 1885-4494.

The red tilapia adapts well to the high salinity and it is a great candidate for cultivation in mesohaline water. The probiotics are food supplements that can improve the productive performance in fish farming. This work was carried out to evaluate the productive performance and the sexual proportion of the red tilapia fingerlings (Oreochromis sp., Saint Peter strain) under inclusion of increasing probiotic levels (0, 5, 10 and 15 g of probiotic/kg of commercial ration). As experimental units were used: water recycling systems - RAS (experiment I) and cage - TER (experiment II) using 0.5% and 1.0% mesohaline water respectively. A completely randomized design with four treatments and three repetitions was used. The productive performance and adjustment in the ration supply were verified at fortnighty biometries with duration of 42 and 70 days for RAS and TER, respectively. The weight, weight gain, biomass, biomass gain, alimentary conversion, the mean daily weight gain, specific growth, condition factor and survival were not influenced by the inclusion of probiotic (p>0.05) in the two experimental units. The sexual proportion of the fingerlings in the 0.5% and 1.0% salinity were not influenced (p>0.05) for the inclusion levels of probiotic. At the end of the experiments, both body weight, and animal total length increased following a geometric model. It can be concluded that levels of commercial probiotic doesn't contribute satisfactorily to improve the performance of red tilapia reared in a recycling system (aquarium or cage) in mesohaline water.

Keywords : Growth promoter; Fingerling; Recycling system; Tilapia culture.

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