ZOOTECHNICAL PERFORMANCE OF NILE TILAPIA (Oreochromis niloticus) JUVENILE FED WITH PROBIOTIC CEPAS AND SUBMETIDS A HEALTH CHALLENGE

Abstract

The appearance of diseases caused by stress during the cultivation of juveniles have become rather common due to the intensification of the production systems, causing high mortality and economic loss to the grower. Due to this context, the probiotics (which are a group of live microorganisms) are being employed due to their capacity of establishing and multiplying in the host’s intestine and promote equilibrium to the microbiota contributing with the sanity and performance of fish, especially in the first weeks of life. Thus, this work had as objective to evaluate the development of juvenile of Nile tilapia fed with probiotic strains and subjected to sanitary challenge. 180 juvenile were experimented, distributed in a completely randomized design with three treatments, four replications and 15 fishes as experimental unit. The treatments were: T1 – fish cultivated in clean water without the use of probiotics; T2 – fish cultivated in water under challenge and without the use of probiotics; DP – fish cultivated in water under challenge with the use of probiotics. There was no significant effect (P>0.05) in the parameters of zootechnical performance, feeding consumption and survival rate. The use of probiotics in the feeding was not able provide improvements in the performance, feeding consumption and survival of juvenile Nile tilapia in the period of 30 days of cultivation.
Keywords: fish farming; pig manure; probiotic; weight gain.