Abstract

Aquaculture is a practice of cultivating aquatic animals and plants under artificial environmental conditions in controlled or semi-controlled conditions. It is one of the fastest food production sectors in the world due to high animal protein demand and, plays a significant role in contributing food security and reducing employment rate of the rising world population. Despite the enormous potential for aquaculture production in Ethiopia, it remains more potential than actual practice. This review is under taken with recent available articles to assess the main factors affecting growth performance of Oreochromis niloticus in aquaculture. The major factors affecting growth performance of O. niloticus in aquaculture are genetic variation, feeding rate and frequency, stocking density, feed composition and water quality. These factors can affect feed conversion ratio, weight gain, feeding efficiency, reproduction and health of O. niloticus. Water quality also influences feeding, growth, disease burdens, and survival rates. The most important water quality parameters in aquaculture are pH, temperature, ammonia, dissolved oxygen and salinity. For a better growth performance of O. niloticus in culture system, the feed should constitute protein, lipid, carbohydrate, vitamin and minerals with an optimum quantity. Generally, better growth performance of O. niloticus can be achieved in aquaculture through adjusting the optimum quantity of feed with adequate feeding rate and frequency, increase genetic variability, keeping biological density in a good proportion and monitoring of water quality in a regular manner.

Keywords: Nile tilapia; Growth performance; Stocking density; Aquaculture