High stocking density alters growth performance, blood biochemistry, intestinal histology, and muscle quality of channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus

By M. Refaey, Dapeng Li, Xing Tian, Zhimin Zhang, Xi Zhang, Li Li, R. Tang. Aquaculture, 2018

166 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Stocking density is one of the major factors affecting production and welfare of fish in aquaculture. This study investigated the effect of different stocking densities on growth, feed efficiency, blood biochemistry, histometric response, muscular composition, and flesh quality of channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus. Fish were cultured at low, medium, and high stocking density of 50, 150, and 300 fish m−3, respectively, for 60 days in the recirculating aquaculture system. Fish growth and feed efficiency significantly decreased with increasing stocking density. Serum concentrations of glucose, triglyceride, and total cholesterol, as well as the activities of both aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase, significantly elevated as stocking density increased. High stocking density led to the decline in serum levels of thyroid hormones. The villi length and its number, as well as the size of goblet cells in the intestine, were negatively affected by high stocking density. There was a significant density-dependent decrease in muscular fat content, diameter of dorsal muscle fiber, intensity of muscular bundles, and percentage of muscular bundles area in dorsal muscle. However, the percentage of the intramuscular connective tissue showed a significant increase in fish reared at high stocking density. Fish stocked in high density exhibited the decrease in muscle pH, drip loss, and frozen leakage rate. Overall, the increased stocking density could cause the unfavorable impacts on growth, feed efficiency, histological change, and flesh quality of I. punctatus.

Subfields: Aquatic Science, Immunology, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9585a71a17ba27ca872f46005de3fd6d4dcdd848

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

1. Xing Lu
2. Juan Tian
3. M. Jiang
4. Lijuan Yu
5. Wei Liu
6. Fan Wu
7. H. Wen
8. Chang-geng Yang

Citations in the corpus

• Effect of stocking density on growth performance, serum biochemical parameters, and muscle texture properties of genetically improved farm tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (2018, background): “Additionally, fish were subjected to stressful condition such as high stocking density during culture period caused reduced flesh quality (Refaey et al. 2018).”