Food deprivation does not affect growth performance of juvenile tambacu

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of food deprivation on the growth performance of the commercially important hybrid fish tambacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus male × Colossoma macropomum female). For this, 171 juveniles of average length 8 cm and 11.4 g body mass were distributed in nine tanks, and allocated to three treatments: the fish were fed every day (control), fed for six days followed by one day of food deprivation (6F/1D) and fed for five days followed by two days of food deprivation (5F/2D). After 77 days, all animals achieved similar growth rates. Only animals submitted to two days of food deprivation presented hyperphagia. There was a reduction in total feed consumption of 3.8% and 10.8% for the 6F/1D and 5F/2D treatments, respectively. Our results suggest that juvenile tambacu exhibit total compensatory growth when submitted to food deprivation, and that a two-day deprivation could significantly reduce production costs for tambacu farmers.