Effect of Feed Cycling on Specific Growth Rate, Condition Factor, Body Composition and Rna/Dna Ratio of Cirrhinus mrigala

A randomly selected 60 samples of cirrhinus mrigala, fingerling sized, were collected from qadria fish hatchery and farm, matital road, multan. fish were divided into three groups namely, control, 5 and 10 days cyclic feeding group. specific growth rate (% g day^-1), condition factor (k), body composition and rna/dna ratio of individual specimen and of each group were calculated. it was found that there was highly significant effect of feed cycling on specific growth rate (p<0.001) and significant effect (0.01) on condition factor of cirrhinus mrigala. there was a sharp decline in specific growth rate with increase in length of starvation but carp was able to maintain its body constituents i.e., % water, % dry body mass, % ash, % fat, % protein and % organic contents (p>0.05) suggesting a compensatory growth which was independent of length of starvation. feed cycling had marked effect (p<0.05) on rna/dna ratio of this carp and a gradual decrease in rna/dna ratio was observed with increase in length of starvation.