Aazam Ali, Abhishek Srivastava and Abhed Pandey
Abstract
To evaluate the effects of adding amur carp (Cyprinus carpio haematopterus) in a semi-intensive carp polyculture system on water quality, fish survival, and yield, an outdoor study (180 days) was conducted in cemented tanks (80m2) with stocking density of 1 fingerling m-2. Healthy fingerlings of common carp/ amur carp were stocked along with Indian major carps in different stocking combinations in five treatments, viz. catla, rohu, mrigal, common carp in 30:40:10:20 (CPS1), catla, rohu, mrigal, amur carp in 30:40:20:10 (CPS2), 30:40:15:15 (CPS3), 30:40:10:20 (CPS4) and 30:40:5:25 (CPS5) and were fed @ 2% of fish body weight daily after sunrise. The physico-chemical parameters of water, remained well within the recommended range in all the treatments. The fish survival was highest in CPS3 (95.42%) and lowest in CPS1 (91.67%). As compared to common carp (CPS1), the amur carp registered higher net weight gain in all the treatments (CPS2-CPS5), being highest in CPS3. Fish yield was highest in CPS3, and as compared to the CPS1 treatment, 36.33, 31.96, and 24.54% higher fish yield was recorded in CPS3, CPS4, and CPS5 treatments, respectively. Therefore, it can be summarized that amur carp is a good alternative of common carp, and for better fish yield, 50% of mrigal can be replaced with amur carp under polyculture system.