WEANING OF JUVENILE PIKEPERCH (SANDER LUCIOPERCA L.) FROM LIVE FOOD TO ARTIFICIAL DIET

E. Katsarov, T. Hubenova, D. Terziyski, A. Zaikov

Abstract: The aim of the experiment was to test two methods of juvenile pikeperch weaning from live food to artificial diet: variant 1: 8 days co-feeding with dry feed and frozen chironomids, followed by dry feed feeding and variant 2: two days feeding with frozen chironomids, followed by dry feed feeding. 1560 individuals of juvenile pikeperch with mean initial total length (TL) 2.540 ± 0.04 cm, weight (W) 0.181 ± 0.01 g and condition factor (K) 1.107 ± 0.03 from a earth pond were randomly distributed into 4 plastic tanks in a flow water system. The study was performed at stocking density of 6 ind.l-1 in double repeat. The weaning success was evaluated after 20 day rearing period. In the variant 1 there was achieved significantly higher survival rate (mean 52.95%) in comparison with the variant 2 (mean 26.80%). The values of specific growth rate, body weight and body length are better in variant 1 than in variant 2, respectively: 2.184%/0.502%; 0.487 ± 0.02 g/0.377 ± 0.02 g; 3.711 ± 0.07 cm/3.356 ± 0.05 cm.

Keywords: body weight; dry feed; pikepech; stock density; survival; weaning

Date published: 2017-09-28