Body composition and fatty acid profile of carps under the influence of rice polish and pond fertilization

The experiment was conducted in two earthen ponds to investigate the body composition,and fatty acid profile of carps along with growth performance by using rice polish as fish feed with urea and ammonium nitrate fertilization of pond. silver carp (hypophthalmichthys molitrix),rohu (labeo rohita) and mori (cirrhinus mrigala) were stocked in the ratio of 1:2:1 respectively with total number of 40 fishes in each pond. pond 1 was treated with urea and rice polish while pond 2 was treated with ammonium nitrate and rice polish at the rate of 0.3g nitrogen/100g of wet body weight of fish daily. there was found highly significant difference between species and ponds in terms of growth. highest growth in terms of gain in body weight was shown by h. molitrix in both ponds i.e. 399.0g in pond 1 and 299.9g in pond 2. net fish production of pond 1 remained as 1311.3 kg/ha/year and pond 2 was 1104.2 kg/ha/year. pond 1 showed 1.5 times greater fish production than pond 2. proximate analysis of the fish meat showed that there was no significant difference in body composition of three species in both the ponds. highest protein contents (18.04 %) were found in the meat of c. mrigala in p1 and lowest protein contents (17.16 %) were in the meat of h. molitrix in p2. there was also non-significant difference between three species in terms of fatty acid profile. the overall contents of fatty acids were highest in l. rohita as compared to other two species. saturated fatty acids were highest in l. rohita whereas monounsaturated fatty acids were highest in c. mrigala. © copyright 2016 zoological society of pakistan.