Use of Shrimp Penaeus spp. and Krill Euphauisa spp. in a Feed Training Diet for Striped Snakehead Channa striata

Snakehead Channa striata fry, with an initial average weight of 60 mg were trained to accept artificial feeds containing either freeze-dried krill powder, or pulverized dried shrimp. A third, more traditional diet, containing 36% fishmeal was used as a control. Training diets were given, which contained 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, or 0% krill meal by weight, or the same rates of pulverized shrimp by weight. Feed training began with the 100% krill or shrimp diets, and they were lowered by 25% every two days until 0% krill and shrimp diets were reached. The control received a 36% protein containing powder feed throughout the study period. The experiment contained four replicates per treatment group. Each replicate contained 200 fry at the starting of the study. Fry were fed to satiation four times a day for 10 days. At harvest, survival of fish given the control diet (47.25 ± SD 13.34%) was lower than those given krill (84.13± SD 12.41%) or shrimp diets (87.5 ± SD 1.47%) (P 0.05). Weight gain differed between treatments (P = 0.0009), being highest with the shrimp diet, intermediate with the krill diet, and lowest in the control. Condition factors were similar between the treatments.