Impact of Stocking Density as the Growth and Biomass Production of Hybrid Tilapia (Red Strain) in Cages

The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of stocking density influencing the growth of Hybrid Tilapia (Red strain) in cages for culture period of 120 days. The experiment is conducted in Thanjavur Center for sustainable Aquaculture, Sorrokottai, Tamil Nadu, India. Hybrid Tilapia fingerling ABW of (3.3+0.01 g) were stocked at 20/m3 (T1), 30/m3 (T2) and 40/m3 (T3) and fed 3 times daily (9:00, 12:00 and 17:00 H) with a commercial food 40% protein gradually reduce to 35 to 30% protein and stock was sampled fortnight. Among three stocking densities, 20 fish/m3 was found to be the best for the growth in cages, while the FCR and net biomass production were found higher in high stocking densities fishes (30, 40 fish/m3). The best FCR was 1.08 +0.06 from T1 (20 fish/m3) with 92.5+0.04% of FCE. The highest net biomass production was 19 kg (3.16 kg/m3) from T2 (30 fish/m3). Present study reveal that stocking density has negative effect on bio-growth parameters but biomass production has positive effect with stocking density.