Analysis of biological factors on affecting the growth performance and water quality of biofloc aquaculture system for freshwater barramundi

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical & Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
² Centre of Hydrogen Energy, Institute of Future Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: mjohari@utm.my

Abstract

Biofloc technology is used to improve water quality and fish growth performance of aquaculture. The purpose of this research is to analyse the biological factors on freshwater barramundi in biofloc aquaculture system. Three set of experiments with 3 biological factors were carried out for freshwater barramundi to analyse the water quality and to evaluate the cultivated fish growth performance under the application of biofloc technology for 10 weeks. The biological factors involved are stocking density, carbon-to-nitrogen ratio and feeding rate. The water quality parameters were monitored weekly while the growth indices will be determined at the end of the experiments. The results revealed that stocking density has insignificant effect on the water quality but essential affected the growth rate of the freshwater barramundi. The best growth rate is observed at lowest stocking studied (10 fish/m³⁾. The biofloc technology aquaculture system with C:N ratio of 16:1 and lowest stocking density (10 fish/m³) produced the best water quality and growth performance. Meanwhile the compatible feeding rate for the juvenile freshwater barramundi was identified at rate of 1% of fish body weight with feeding frequency once or twice a day in order to control the water quality and produced good growth performance of the juvenile.