Feed training of peacock bass (Cichla sp.).

The Amazonian cichlid peacock bass (Cichla sp.) is a highly marketable food and sport fish, therefore a suitable species for aquaculture. However, because of its piscivorous feeding preferences, the species does not accept dry feeds voluntarily, turning its intensive culture difficult and costly. This study aimed to wean fingerling peacock bass from inert moist food to dry diets. In a first experiment, 1,134 fingerlings weighting 0.27 g were divided in two 0.37 m3 hapas and fed ground fish flesh with 35% success. Then, 1.3 g fish were pooled, stocked in six 25 L cages and fed two pellet sequences with 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% and 0% ground fish flesh (GFF). One sequence was flavored with 10% krill meal (Euphausia sp.). Training success of fish fed the GFF-00 diet flavored with krill reached 12%a compared to 11.6%a (p < 0.05) for diets without krill meal. A second experiment was set up with 969, 1.5 g fish, trained with GFF with 39.8% success. After the feed training period, 2.2 g fish were then fed a sequence of moist pellets containing 80%, 60% and 45% GFF. Fish trained to feed on moist pellets with 45% ground fish were pooled and stocked into nine 25 L cages. Fish were weaned to dry pellets without ground fish flesh (GFF-00) using three diet sequences: 1) dry pellets; 2) moist pellets; and 3) dry pellets flavored with 4% cod liver oil; all three diets contained 30, 10 and 0% GFF. The three sequences yielded, respectively 30.8%a, 23.6%a, and 24.7%a (p < 0.05) fish feeding on GFF-00. There were no apparent beneficial effects of increasing moisture or addition of cod liver oil as flavor enhancers in the weaning diets. This study revealed the feasibility of training peacock bass to accept dry pellets, but feeding young fish ground fish flesh seemed to be a major bottleneck in improving feed training success.