A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GROWTH AND SURVIVAL IN JUVENILES OF “SHINNING BARB” (Pethia conchonius) FED WITH ARTIFICIAL FEED, PLANKTON AND THE COMBINATION OF BOTH

The life cycle of fish undergoes a lot of changes, starting from eggs to adult and the nutritional requirements for the fish vary with some factors such as the relationship between the diet and life stage. The experiment was conducted to have a comparative study between the effect of live feed and artificial feed on the growth and survivality of the juveniles of shinning barb consisting of three treatments i.e.T1 (plankton), T2 (artificial feed + plankton) and T3 (artificial feed) at the premises of ornamental unit of ICAR-CIFA, Bhubaneswar. The physico-chemical parameters of water such as temperature (°C), pH, dissolved oxygen (mg L), free carbon dioxide (mg L-1), alkalinity (mg L-1) and Hardness (mg L-1) were estimated weekly. Growth parameters like Mean body weight and length, weight gain and length gain (%), specific growth rate (SGR), survival (%) of shining barb, Pethia conchonius was recorded in mixed diet compared to fishes fed only with live food or artificial feed alone. It indicated that the association of formulated diet and plankton was enough for fish metabolism which consequently resulted in a more suitable growth, than live food only or formulated diet only. Fishes fed with mixed diet recorded the highest growth performance and better survival than live food alone. So mixed food may be the best diet for rearing of shining barb.