Optimizing stocking density for grow-out culture of silver pompano Trachinotus blochii (lacépède, 1801) in marine floating cages

ABSTRACT

Hatchery produced silver pompano, Trachinotus blochii fingerlings were stocked in nine cages at three different stocking densities of 15 (SD15), 10 (SD10) and 5 individuals m⁻³ (SD5) in triplicate. The results indicated that the percent weight gain, specific growth rate, and average daily growth were decreased with the high stocking density (SD15), and better performance was also observed in the low stocking density (SD5) treatment. Better feed conversion ratio was observed in SD5. Among the stocking density treatments, SD15 showed a higher yield than the rest of the groups. Comparison of yield to SD5 as the control, yield for SD10, and SD15 was 141.9% and 180.8%, respectively. Though the observed growth performance of silver pompano was better at SD5, the yield was significantly (P < .05) higher at SD15. Thus, we conclude that silver pompano with a stocking density of 15 individuals m⁻³ is optimum for better production and yield.

KEYWORDS:

• Trachinotus blochii
• stocking density
• grow-out culture
• growth rate
• sea-cage

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to Director of ICAR-CMFRI, Kochi, Head of Mariculture Division, ICAR-CMFRI, Kochi, Dr. G. Gopakumar, Former Head & Scientist-in-Charges of Mandapam Regional Centre for their support and guidance to carry out this research work. The authors are indebted to Dr. L. Ranjith of Tuticorin Research Centre of ICAR-CMFRI for their help in language editing of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

C. Kalidas: Conceptualization, Investigation and Writing - original draft

P. Rameshkumar: Co-Investigation, Supervision and Writing - originalWriting – original draft

D. LingaPrabu: Data curation and analysis, Validation, Review & editing

G. Tamilmani: Supervision and Formal analysis

M. Anbarasu: Methodology and conducting the experiment

P. Rajendran: Conducting the experiment and sampling

R. Thiagu: Conducting the experiment and sampling

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute [CMFRI/MD/19].