Interview No. 5 BFAR 1. What is the existing process of feeding a Tilapia in your pond? We use the manual process of feeding tilapias. We throw the feeds onto the pond. 2. What are the problems that you encounter in feeding the Tilapias? Recently because of the cold weather, the amounts of food they eat in a day are being lessened because of the temperature. This summer when the temperature is high, they did not eat that much. There are certain temperature that should be met so that they will reach the right feeding behavior. It means when the temperature is low they eat less and in a high temperature they eat less but depends on the quantity of tilapias on the pond. 3. How many times do you feed the Tilapia in a day? This depends on the size of the fish. From fingerlings to juvenile 3-4x/day , when it is on 3rd month it becomes 2x/day until you can harvest it. You lessen the feeding frequency as the fish grows. 4. Where does the amount of feeds depend on? The amount of feed varies on its size. From size 24-14, in tilapia, the higher the size the smaller it is, the lower the size the big it is.
(Total
number
rate)x(Survival rate)
of
stacks)x(Average
body
weight)x(Feeding
Daily
Feed
Ration
=
_______________________________________________________ (Feeding frequency)
The total number of stacks is the number of fish on the pond. The average body weight was being sample; you will get the 10% of the total number of stacks then you will weigh it and divide it on the 10% of the population. The feeding rate depends on the size of the fish, for fingerlings, the feeding rate is 10%-15%, for juvenile, the feeding rate is 5%-10%, for adult, the feeding rate is 2%-5%. Note that you have to get the highest number of percentage. The standard survival rate is 80%. Feeding frequency is how many times you feed them a day.
Every 2 weeks you have to sample as their average body weight changes. You have to sample monthly so you can get its specific individual average body weight. 5. What type of feeds do you feed the Tilapia? This depends on the size of the mouth of fish. For the brand of the feed, we used Tathe. For fingerlings, we used the crumble. After a month, you can shift to starter feed. 6. How many kilograms of feeds are consumed in a day of feeding? It is the same with question number 4.
7. Do you change the amount of feeds during rainy season? Yes, we lessened the amount of feed. Sometimes you feed them 3x/day but when it rains all day, it is okay if you don’t feed them. They are like humans, if it is cold they are lazy to move.
8. In your opinion, will having an automatic tilapia feeder be a great help? If your fishpond is wide like hectares, you can use this. When it is small and you can manually feed them then stick to manual.