Effectiveness of African catfish pituitary extracts, dagin and water flow for optimising egg production, fertilisation and hatchability in artificial spawning of Barbus altianalis

Fish inducing hormones are widely used in commercial aquaculture to facilitate continuous supply of sufficient seed required on regular basis by the farmers. The objective of this study was to optimise production of viable eggs for improved hatchability during artificial spawning in Barbus altianalis. Two experiments were conducted, namely (i) experiment I evaluated the efficiency of using catfish pituitary extracts in spawning of second generation broodstocks compared to that of Dagin and water flow. (ii) experiment II examined ripe running females facilitated to spawn by running water only. Fish treated with pituitary extracts performed much better than those treated by Dagin with respect to fertilisation rates at 80.27 ± 39.57% (U = 66.5, p < 0.001) and working fecundity at 2314.40 ± 882.04 (U = 59.5, p < 0.05). However, the difference in hatchability was not significant (p > 0.05). In experiment II, hatchability and working fecundity were significantly higher when fish were striped after 4 hours (100 degree hours at 25 oC) of running water than those striped after 10 hrs (250 degree hours) but fertilization rates were not different. The findings indicate that catfish pituitary extracts are more effective in inducing B. altianalis to spawn than those treated with Dagin. However, the observations made on ripe running females in both experiments suggest that they should not be induced with any hormone. Hence, the cost of spawning could further be reduced using running water, especially in wet seasons when the majority are ripe.Key words: Eggs, hatchability, hormone, spawnin