Live Feeding Strategy for Striped Snakehead Fish (Channa striata) Larvae

Abstract

Snakehead fish is an important freshwater fish in several developing countries, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. This fish has the potential to be cultivated. This study aimed to determine the feeding live feed strategy on snakehead fish, specifically from endogenous to exogenous live feed. This natural feeding transition is crucial for snakehead fish culture. The brood stock fish spawned naturally, and then the eggs were incubated and hatched in an aquarium. The newly hatched larvae were kept in an aquarium for two days before subjected to experiments. A total of 200 larvae were put into the aquarium and maintained without feeding. The mortality rate of larvae was calculated every hour until all larvae die. The second experiment was to calculate the amount of live feed Artemia salina consumed by larvae every day and identify the stage of the larva, where the consumption of live feed could be reduced and replaced with artificial food. All the experiment units were carried out with 3 replications. The results showed that the newly hatched larvae without being fed could survive up to 3 days, but after 10 days, the mortality reached 50%, and after 18 days, the mortality reached 100%. Consumption of live feed could be started on larvae aged 3 to 11 days after hatching, at age 12 to 17 days, larvae must be fed with a combination of live feed and artificial food with more amounts of live feed than artificial food, and at the age of 18 to 22 days after hatching the amount of live feed can be reduced, and the amount of artificial feed is increased. Therefore, the accuracy of feeding is a very important stage in aquaculture, especially in fish hatcheries.