2013 Volume 15 Issue Supplement Pages 123-132
Caulerpa lentillifera has been reared traditionally cultured in bottoms of fishponds and was first reared in Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines. Conversion of mangroves into ponds has been banned in the Philippines and the off bottom culture of this alga was studied in order to find its growth in an open and natural body of waters cultured at three different water levels and culture sites. This study used the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four culture media as treatment. Treatment 1, use plastic screen cage; Treatment 2, tubular plastic screen; Treatment 3 nylon screen cage and Treatment 4 tubular nylon screen. The culture media were placed in bamboo raft where this was divided into three layers representing the surface, midlayer and bottom layer and placed in different sites which are muddy, rocky and sandy bottom. Sampling was done every 15 days for three months taking wet weight of the plant as factor. Results showed that as to the efficiency of each culture medium based on the water level it was found out that on the surface level the C. lentillifera placed in plastic screen cage has the highest growth rate in Site 1 (muddy site) and tubular nets ranked first in site 2 (rocky) and site 3 (sandy). For the middle layer based on the mean weight of the plant showed that tubular nets has the highest in site 1 (muddy) and plastic screen cage got the highest in site 2 (rocky) and 3 (sandy). For the bottom layer the tubular plastic screen dominates the highest growth rate of all the culture media used from site 1, 2 and 3. Middle layer is the best layer for the off- bottom culture of lato using the plastic screen cage based on the highest mean growth of the plant. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed that there is no significant difference on the growth rate of Caulerpa lentillifera placed in plastic screen cage, tubular nets with the different water levels in the three culture sites.
