Effect of different levels of dietary Betaine on growth performance, food efficiency and survival rate of pike perch (Sander lucioperca) fingerlings

 A 6-week feeding experiments were carried out to determine the effects of different levels of dietary betaine on growth performance, food efficiency and survival rate of pike perch which has a critical period during transition feeding. Fingerlings of pike perch were fed with live food (treatment A), without betaine added to biomar (treatment B), 1% betaine added to biomar (treatment C) and 2% betaine added to biomar (treatment D) in 1000 l concreted tanks. 200 fingerlings (1.50 g, mean weight) were stocked in each tank and fed up to 7 meals per day. Higher increment in body weight (4.99 ± 0.73 g), specific growth rate (3.90 ± 0.06) and food efficiency (104.42 ± 4.27) were obtained with treatment D (2% betaine added to biomar). This treatment also showed significant (P < 0.05) decrease in food conversion ratio (0.93 ± 0.04) in comparison with other treatments. Highest survival rate was observed in treatment B (biomar without betaine) with a 34.5 % rate and greatest cannibalism (1.03 ± 0.01) was found in treatment D, respectively. It was concluded that betaine could increase the palatability and acceptability of food and could be suitable to weaning the pike perch fingerlings to artificial diet.