Production of Tilapia advance fingerling in cages involving women in the haor region of Bangladesh

Abstract

Cage culture of fish allows intensive production in water bodies without conventional preparation for aquaculture. This is highly important to a country like Bangladesh, which has a large amount of inland waters. Haor region of Bangladesh is blessed with huge potential of fisheries. To meet up the growing demand of fish it needs to introduce aquaculture in haor areas. Cage culture might be one of the suitable options for aquaculture in the floodplains of haors. On the other hand, there are many ponds in haor area most of which become flooded during monsoon. So it needs to introduce fast growing species like tilapia both in cages as well as pond aquaculture. So the present study was undertaken to assess the production of tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) advanced fingerling in cages involving women in the haor region of Bangladesh for a period of 52 days from 10 July 2013 in five villages viz. Pangao, Dattagram, Dulpushi, Anwarpur and Dolua of Derai upazilla at Sunamganj district. There were 5 treatments with 7 replicates each. A total of 35 cages were distributed over 35 families. The size of each cage was 1m th th June to 31 . The cages were settled up in nearby river and canal of the said villages. In each treatment the differences was in stocking densities. Stocking density was 800, 900, 1000, 1100 and 1200 in treatment-1, treatment-2, treatment-3, treatment-4 and treatment-5, respectively. The mean initial body weights of fingerlings were 1.94g for all cages. Fingerlings were fed with floating commercial feed named mega feed with protein percent of 35%. The final average weight varies between 42.7-46.2g in different treatments. Average survival was found 97.8-99.1%. Specific growth rate observed almost equal in all treatments 6.4-6.6%. Net yield varied between 33.8-49.4 kg m 3 -3 in different treatments with comparatively higher (P<0.05) production in treatment-5. Financial return was calculated Tk. 4705.7 ± 35.1, Tk. 5301.4 ± 23.7, Tk. 5870.6 ± 27.5, Tk. 6540.0 ± 28.8 and Tk. 7071.4 ± 70.8, in treatments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. Significantly higher (P<0.05) return was found in treatment-5. Significantly higher (P<0.05) net benefit was also observed in treatment-5. From this study it is found in terms of growth, production and economics treatment-5 was best followed by treatment-4. Therefore it is suggested that tilapia fry rearing in cages can be a good option for the farmers and stocking density 1100 and 1200 m -3 is good for advanced fingerling production. Therefore, tilapia fingerling production in cages can be considered as a good option for alternate income generation for the fisher households involving women.