Natural food and artificial, dry starter diets: effects on growth and survival in intensively reared European grayling

Abstract

Four artificial, dry feeds and two diets consisting of natural, live food were evaluated for use as starter diets in the intensive rearing of European grayling (Thymallus thymallus). Long-term effects of the different diets were also studied. The investigation was divided into two parts: a 14 day starter period and the subsequent 115 days, during which the long-term effects were studied. Diets differed between the different treatment groups during the initial 2 weeks, whereafter all fish were offered a single diet. At the end of the starter period, significant differences in weight (p<0.001) were obtained between natural (control) feed groups and three of the artificial feed groups. The highest growth rate (9.6% day⁻¹), and length increase (9 mm) as well as the lowest mortality rate (6.0%) were obtained with one of the artificial diets. Growth rate, length increase and mortality of grayling in the other diet groups varied from 3.6 to 7.7% day⁻¹, 5 to 7 mm and 7.0 to 9.1%, respectively. The switchover to a different dry diet resulted in an increase in mean daily mortality for all groups previously fed a dry diet. For the fish previously fed live food the mortality rate remained about the same. Groups of fish growing slowly during one period seemed to compensate for their initially low growth by increasing their growth rates during the next period. The highest mean daily mortality for all groups during the experiment was observed during the period with the highest water temperature. It was concluded that European grayling can be intensively reared during the start-feeding phase on artificial as well as natural diets, and that artificial dry diets can be used exclusively throughout the first summer.