WEANING OF PIKEPERCH (SANDER LUCIOPERCA L.) FRY FROM LIVE FOOD TO ARTIFICIAL FEED USING CHIRONOMIDS AND MINCED FISH MEAT

A. Zaikov, T. Hubenova, M. Gevezova-Kazakova, M. Yankova

Abstract: The aim of the experiment was to teste two methods of juvenile pikeperch weaning from live food to artificial feed: variant. 1 - 8 days co-feeding of dry feed and frozen chironomids and variant 2 – 1-8 days co-feeding of dry feed and minced fish meat. 960 individuals of juvenile pikeperch with mean initial total length (TL) 3.77±0.164 cm and weight (W) 0.43±0.065 g from nursing pond were randomly distributed into 4 plastic tanks in flow throw system. The study was performed at stocking density of 6 ind. l-1 in double repeat. The weaning success was evaluated after 10 day rearing period. In variant 2 significantly higher survival rate was achieved (mean 66.2 %) in comparison with variant 1 (mean 54.35 %).
In relation with weight the received results in variant 1 are better than those in variant 2. The same could be observed in the lengths of the fish in the beginning and in the end of the experiment.

Keywords: body weight; chironomids; dry feed; minced meat fish; pikepech; survival; weaning

Date published: 2017-03-20