Dietary lacto-sacc improved growth performance, food acceptability, body indices, and basic hematological parameters in empurau (Tor tambroides) fries reared in the aquaponics system

ABSTRACT

The slow growth rate of empurau (Tor tambroides) fish has been reported, impeding its aquaculture practice extensively in Malaysia. It mainly occurs at the fry to fingerling phase. Hence, the present research evaluated the dietary lacto-sacc feed supplement on the growth performance and health status of T. tambroides fries. The fish growth was outperformed significantly (P < 0.05) after 12 weeks in fish fed with the lacto-sacc supplemented fish feed compared to the nonsupplemented control diet. As with the growth performance, the basic hematological parameters were significantly (P < 0.05) improved. This study was the first attempt to indicate the suitability of dietary lacto-sacc for empurau fries nursery in an aquaponics system. Although this study was performed in four types of aquaponics systems, the factorial analysis confirmed that diet had a strong effect for this occurrence.

KEYWORDS:

• Malaysian mahseer
• Tor tambroides
• growth
• probiotics
• lacto-sacc

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Borneo Empurau Farm Sdn Bhd., the research collaborator of UNIMAS, for allowing us to conduct this research in their aquaponics area and Honey Aquaculture and Asian Eco Fish, AllTech@Malaysia for providing free of cost fish fries and lacto-sacc.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research project was carried out with financial support from the Small Grant Scheme Project (Ref: F07/SGS/1624/2017) of UNIMAS.