Feeding Frequency Effects on Growth and Feed Utilisation of African Catfish in Plastic Tanks in Kwara State

Optimising feeding frequency in catfish culture is a practical management strategy for improving feed efficiency and reducing production costs for smallholder farmers. This study examines the effect of feeding frequency on the growth performance, feed utilisation efficiency, and survival of juvenile Clarias gariepinus reared in 500-litre plastic tanks at a fish farm in Ilorin, Kwara State, North Central Nigeria. One hundred and eighty juveniles with an initial mean weight of 10.1 g were stocked at 12 fish per tank and assigned to three feeding frequency treatments of once, twice, or three times daily to apparent satiation, each replicated three times. The trial lasted eight weeks, with biweekly weight sampling. Results showed that fish fed three times daily recorded the highest mean weight gain and specific growth rate, while those fed once daily had the poorest performance and highest feed conversion ratio. However, differences between twice-daily and three-times-daily treatments were not statistically significant at the 5% level for most growth parameters. Survival rates exceeded 95% in all treatments. The study recommends twice-daily feeding as the optimal practical frequency for smallholder catfish farmers in Kwara State, as it approaches the growth performance of three-times-daily feeding while reducing labour costs and feed wastage. This finding has direct implications for the design of feeding management guidelines distributed by the Kwara State Agricultural Development Programme's aquaculture extension unit.

Keywords: feeding frequency, Clarias gariepinus, growth performance, feed utilisation, Kwara State