Feeding Regimes Of The Small Minnow In Recirculating Water System: The Pilot Project to Culture Thai Indigenous Minnow Rasbora borapetensis for Using in The Biomedical Research

Abstract

The National Committee for Research Animal,Thailand had launched the pilot project to study the possibility to breed and culture the Thai indigeneous minnows in recirculation water system in order to reduce the import of zebrafish from abroad to study the medical research. The feeding trial of larvae with different stages, juvenile and broodstock had been investigated including the measurement of mouth size of larvae with the age of 3-15 days. The feeding trail had been conducted in the circulating water system with acrylic tank set up on the shelf, water had been filtered using glass wool, plastic bio-ball and disinfected by ultraviolet. The mouth size of the first feeding period was around 56 micron, then on the age of 1 week the mouth size increased around six times to be around 355 micron, then at the age of 2 weeks the mouth size increased about 28 times of the first feeding size to be about 1,567 micron. The survival rate of the fry with the age of 3-10 days quite low as this was the first breeding success, the survival rate of fry fed with cholera, brachionus and powder feed were 5%, 7% and 10% respectively which was not significantly different (P>0.05). While the survival rate of the fry with the age of 11-30 days was higher than the younger one, the highest survival rate obtained from fry fed powder feed with 37% while the fry fed Moina and Artemia was not significantly different (P>0.05) in survival rate, it was 20% and 22% respectively. Both survival rate and growth performance of juvenile fed with different feeds were not significantly different among treatments (P>0.05). There were no significantly different (P>0.05) in growth rate,GSI and number of egg. Fish fed pellet feed coated with squid oil had the higher GIS than the others, while the lowest GIS was obtained from fish fed Moina.