2006 Volume 18 Issue 1 Pages 9-14
Trials of individual rearing of tilapia Oreochromis niloticus were carried out as the feasibility experiments of fish culture using cartridge type tanks. And for the development of the cartridge type tank, a reasonable tank size was examined. Tilapia (average weight 4.5 g) were individually raised for four weeks in the small acrylic aquaria: height of rearing area is 50 mm, depth is 100 mm, and widths are 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 mm. Some of diets flowed out through drainage tube of the aquaria, and were lost. The ratio of lost diets was large in the 20 mm-width aquaria, in which fishes were not able to turn around. Specific growth rates (SGR) in 25, 30, 35 and 40 mm-aquaria were almost equal, although SGR in 20 mm-aquaria was lower than them. These differences should be influenced by ratio of lost diets. These results suggested that the most important problem in the development of the cartridge type fish culture system for aquaculture factory is avoidance of feed loss, and the width of cartridge type tank can be reduced into two times the width of the fish.
