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Effect of feeding frequency on food intake, Gastric evacuation and growth in juvenile snook, Centropomus undecimalis (Bloch)

2003; University of Havana; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

0252-1962

Tsai García Galano, Juan Carlos Pérez, Gabriela Gaxiola, Adolfo Sánchez,

Fish Biology and Ecology Studies

Food intake, gastric evacuation, feed conversion ratio, and growth were studied over 86 days in juveniles snook, Centropomus undecimalis, fed 1, 2 or 3 meals per day. A completely randomized design with 3 treatments and 4 repetitions was used. Food intake varied day to day. But average intake per day was not significantly different among regimes (once a day: 0.67 ± 0.21g; twice a day: 0.62 ± 0.28g and three times per day: 0.73 ± 0.13). Food intake was higher in the afternoon than in the morning when fish were fed two (8:30 h, mean value 0.76% biomass; 18:30 h, mean value: 1.1% biomass) and 3 times per day (8:30 h, 0.63% biomass; 13:30 h, 0.64% biomass and 18:30 h, 0.82 % biomass). Feed conversion presented no significant differences among the three treatments (mean value 1.28, p < 0.05). Gastric evacuation time diminished as the number of meals per day increased. Four hours after feeding, gastric evacuation was of 38, 66, and 80%, for fed 1, 2, and 3 times a day, respectively. Time to reach 100% of gastric evacuation was of 16 h for fish fed once a day; 10 h for those fed twice a day, and 5-6 h for fish fed three times per day. The final mean weight over the 86 days period was higher with 3 meals per day (91 ± 25.4 g). No statistical differences were found between mean weight with 1 or 2 feeding frequencies (71 ± 32.4 g and 66 ± 31.9 g, respectively). Specific growth rate (SGR) changes showed similar trends at 1 and 2 feeding frequencies (0.97 ± 0.004 % day -1 and 0.96 ± 0.007% day -1 ) , whereas 3 feeding frequency had a significantly higher value at the end of experiment (1.72 ± 0.002 % day -1 ) (p<0.05)