Effect of dietary Garlic Powder on Growth and Feed Utilization in River Puffer Fish, Takifugu obscurus

It takes about 2 to 3 years to raise river puffer (Takifugu obscurus) to selling size of 300g, so it is necessary to develop aquaculture management methods and special feeds that can shorten this. This study was carried out to investigate the supplemental effects of dietary garlic powder (GP) on growth and feed utilization of river puffer fish (averaging weight, 207g) for 9 weeks (60 days). 180 fish were randomly distributed to each of 6 tanks (30 fish/tank) under a RAS (recirculating aquaculture system). The GP of 1.5% (GP1.5) and 2.5% (GP2.5) was added to the control diet (GP0) containing 58% protein and 8% lipid. After the feeding trial, weight gain (WG), feed efficiency (FE), protein efficiency ratio (PER) and specific growth rate (SGR) of fish fed GP1.5 were significantly higher (P0.05) than those of fish fed GP0 and GP2.5. There was no significant difference in condition factor (CF) and survival rate (SR) among three experimental groups (P0.05). Second order polynomial regression model analysis relation on the basis of WG and SGR indicated that the dietary optimal GP level could be 1.12% for river puffer fish ranging 200 g to 250 g. The present study suggested that dietary GP for river puffer fish could positively affect growth performance.