Planning and management as a weapon for nutritional efficiency in fish farming
Brazil has great potential for aquaculture development. The availability of water resources, an extremely favorable climate and the growing demand for fish within the domestic market are all factors which have contributed to boosting this activity.
Just like any other other zootechnical and productive activity, adequate planning is fundamental for good productive yields in fish farming. Contributing to significant profits which is one of the main objectives behind any productive enterprise.
Considering that approximately 60 to 80% of the total costs in aquaculture are linked to feed costs, nutritional efficiency in commercial production begins during planning. In addition, nutrition and feed management (feed rate and feed frequency) in fish are directly associated with:
In the case of breeders, nutrition and feeding impact both the quantity of produced eggs and the quality of larvae. Thus, good feed and nutritional management are fundamental for successful commercial rearing and for profitability in fish farming.
In order to obtain good nutritional efficiency, some factors must be taken into account, such as: the target species, its development phase, the type of production system, and the quality of feed.
The fish species which are used in aquaculture have different nutritional requirements as well as changing feeding habits (whether they may be carnivorous, herbivorous or omnivorous). Knowledge regarding different characteristics such as: behavior in captivity (i.e. if they are a species that tends to live in the bottom of a body of water); positioning of the mouth and constitution of the branchial apparatus (more open or closed gill arches indicate that certain species have filtration capacities), is very valuable when establishing nutritional plans. As it prevents feed waste and reduces production costs.
In relation to the development phase, fish in their early stages – fingerlings and juveniles – have high metabolic and growth rates. Therefore, they require feed with higher protein and energy content, as well as higher feed rates, compared to those required by fish in the final fattening phase.
Typically, the number of times fish should be fed is higher in the early stages of life. During larviculture it is common for feed to be provided five to eight times a day.During the fry phase, this frequency drops to two or three times a day, while during the fattening...
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