Polyculture Performance of Indigenous and Exotic Fish Species in Pond

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the polyculture performance of both indigenous and exotic fish species at Kandua Village in Madaripur district over a period of 6 months from 31 August 2001 to 1 March 2002. The combination of exotic fish species with selected indigenous fish species designated as treatment T1, treatment T2 and treatment T3 in nine ponds. Treatment T1 comprised of indigenous species rohu (Labeo rohita), catla (Catla catla), mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) and exotic species silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) and grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella). Treatment T2 comprised of indigenous species rohu (Labeo rohita), catla (Catla catla), mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) and exotic species silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) and Thai pangus (Pangasius sutchi) and in Treatment T3 the indigenous species was rohu (Labeo rohita), catla (Catla catla), mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) and the exotic species grass carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) and Thai pangus (Pangasius sutchi). The surface area of each pond was 80 sq. meter with the depth ranged from 0.75-1.0 meter. The stocking density was 11,250 fingerlings/ha in all Treatments. The ponds were cleaned, lined and fertilized prior to stocking. The fishes were fed rice bran and mustard oil cake at 4% of the body weight. The production of fishes showed the positive relationship with temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH. The initial weight of fishes showed the highly significant relation with its final weight in all treatments, but in treatment T2 the relation (r = 0.989) was found to be better than the other two. T1 showed better performance in terms of both gross (1965.68 kg/ha) and net (1806.03 kg/ha) production, survival rate (80.68%) and benefit cost ratio (2.33), whereas T2 showed better performance in terms of growth and T3 showed better relation between survival rate and net production (r = 0.990). Finally, it may be concluded that T1 composition is the better composition for polyculture in pond.