Production efficiency of Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer) culture integrated with sandfish (Holothuria Scabra) and tropical eelgrass (Enhalus acoroides)

As aquaculture production increases, integrated aquaculture of organisms from different trophic level is seem to be a way to mitigate the problem of water quality and production efficiency. Hence, an experiment with four treatments was carried out with a land-based recirculating aquaculture syste...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tong, Beng Hua
Format: Academic Exercise
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://eprints.ums.edu.my/18521/
http://eprints.ums.edu.my/18521/1/Production%20efficiency%20of%20Asian%20seabass.pdf
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Summary:As aquaculture production increases, integrated aquaculture of organisms from different trophic level is seem to be a way to mitigate the problem of water quality and production efficiency. Hence, an experiment with four treatments was carried out with a land-based recirculating aquaculture system by integrating three components, i.e., Asian seabass (lates calcarifer), Sandfish (Holothuria scabra) and Tropical eelgrass (Enhalus acoroides). Treatment 'Control' has only Asian sea bass, 'With Sandfish' has Asian sea bass and Sandfish, 'With Tropical eelgrass' has Asian sea bass and Tropical eelgrass and 'All' has Asian sea bass, Sandfish and Tropical eelgrass. Treatment 'All' observed the best survival (100%±0.0), weight gained (82.79%±8.84) and feed conversion ratio (1.94±0.06) of Asian seabass. Similarly, Sandfish also recorded higher weight gained in treatment 'All' (102.55%±36.56) compared with treatment 'With Sandfish' (78.21±33.60). This is because Sandfish also excrete ammonia, negatively affecting water quality. Tropical eelgrass in treatment 'All' and 'With Tropical eelgrass' showed inconclusive result as the leave length grown does not reflect the dry weight of the leaves. Although there is no difference in water quality parameters (ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and phosphate), chronic exposure to adverse water quality is most likely to be the cause that results in disease outbreak and thus 100% mortality of Asian sea bass in 'Control'. Even though bioremediation of aquaculture waste water can yet to be proven, integrated aquaculture with Asian sea bass, Sandfish and Tropical eelgrass is deemed possible and superior to other form of integration.