A Comparative Study on the Growth, Feed Conversion and Production of Fry of Improved and Non-improved Strains of the Nile Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus

Two experiments were conducted consecutively to evaluate and compare the mean weight (MWT), daily growth rate (DGR), feed conversion ratio (FCR), survival and production rate (PR) in the non-improved strain (NS) of the Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (Cichlidae) with those in the Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT) strain and the FaST selected tilapia (FaST), from the swim-up fry stage to fish weight of 1.0 g (Experiment 1) and from fish weight of 1.0 to 20 g (Experiment 2). In both experiments, results showed the GIFT and FaST strains to have significantly higher MWT, faster DGR, lower FCR and higher PR than those of the NS. Unlike in Experiment 1, survival rates did not differ significantly among the three strains. In Experiment 1, the improvements in the FaST for the MWT, DGR and PR over those for the NS were 77.9, 72.9 and 33.6%, respectively. In Experiment 2, the improvements for the same parameters were 58.7, 57.8 and 54.5%, respectively. These results indicate the advantage and potential of culturing the FaST or the GIFT strain in Kuwait for improving the production of fresh tilapia, reducing the production cost and increasing the profitability of tilapia farms.