Impact of starvation and re-feeding on growth and metabolic responses of Indian pompano (Trachinotus mookalee) juveniles

A 56 days feeding trial was conducted to study the impact of starvation followed by re-feeding on growth performance of Indian pompano juveniles. 450 juveniles (mean +/- SE, 16.69 +/- 0.22 g) were divided into 3 treatments in triplicates. Control group (C) was fed to satiation three times a day and other two experimental groups were designated as 2S (2 days starvation) and 1S (1day starvation) i.e. re-feeding for 5 and 6 days in 2S and 1S respectively. At the completion of 28 days of culture (4 feeding cycle), it is resulted that 1S and C fed group performed with similar (p > 0.05) growth performance in terms of weight gain and specific growth rate indicating that complete compensatory growth occurred. Whereas, pompano juveniles maintained in 2S and 1S showed significant (p < 0.05) difference with highest weight gain and specific growth rate (72.48 +/- 1.85; 3.73 +/- 0.06 respectively) in 1S group during the same period of culture. However, C performed with better WG (85.57 +/- 4.53) and SGR (3.02 +/- 0.01) at the end of the culture period (8 feeding cycle). Juveniles maintained in control and 1S recorded similar food conversion ratio (p > 0.05), and lowest was observed in 2S at the end of the experiment. There was no significant difference in condition factor among all the treatments. Moisture, total lipid, ash, glycogen content of liver and muscle were significantly varied among the treatment groups (p < 0.05). The digestive enzymes activity was significantly (p < 0.05) affected during the starvation and re-feeding cycles. Lowest serum total protein, albumin and globulin were observed in 2S, followed by 1S and the highest was in C fed group (p < 0.05). It is concluded from the study that, feeding cycle with pompano juveniles starved for 1 day and re-fed for 6 days in a week (1S) resulted in complete growth compensation during the first half of the experiment (28 days), while fish starved for 2 days and re-fed for 5 days in a week (2S) showed partial compensation throughout the experimental period. Our results indicate that compensatory growth occurred in Indian pompano and the magnitude and duration of the compensatory growth depended on the length of starvation.