Abstract

Organic wastes can be recycled in an ecologically sound way in fishponds by applying integrated agriculture and aquaculture systems (IAA). This kind of waste recycling can help to protect the environment from pollution and improve fishpond yields. Additionally, IAA provides an opportunity for diversification of the output from two or more existing subsystems leading to higher overall farm economic returns. This study explored the potential application of amaranth wastes (AW) as a dietary ingredient for tilapia in a tilapia-amaranths integrated system (ITA). An experimental diet (AD) contained 10% (based on the control diet, CD) inclusion of AW collected from a nearby vegetable market. The experiments included triplicate treatments with; (i) fish fed on AD, where the pond water was used for irrigating the amaranth plants (IAA-fish), and (ii) fish fed on CD, where no pond water was used for irrigating the amaranth plants (non-IAA fish). 90 days after fish stocking, eighteen 4 m² amaranth plots were prepared and treated with (i) tap water without fertilization (control amaranths), (ii) water from IAA-fish pond and organically fertilized (IAA amaranths), and (iii) tap water and inorganically fertilized (non-IAA amaranths). The use of AW improved the fish feed conversion ratio. The overall net income from ITA was 3.2, 2.3, 2.6, and 1.8 higher than from non-IAA amaranths, IAA-amaranths, non-IAA fish, and IAA fish sub-systems respectively.

Keywords

integrated fish and vegetable farming; fish feed; waste recycling; integrated aquaculture (IAA); net farm income

Published in

Fishes
2020, Volume: 5, number: 3, article number: 30

SLU Authors

• Lundh, Torbjörn

  • Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Ecology
Fish and Wildlife Management


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes5030030

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/107707