Hi All read the posts in this thread and I found a study that address feed(s). I did not understand all of it,but in the end even with the flaws that occured,it appeared the study showed why the fatty livers happen and why it is a problem when growing Trophy CNBG, and other sportsfish maybe.
It takes a while to read and if you care not to read the control data and so many detail, the conclusions seem to me to not be biased.
The real points I gleened from this ONE study, although others were referenced, is that Fat, ammount of fat, as well as type of fat, is important. As well, the study, to me, suppoted the facts/idea that a plant based feed can be made to mimic, for the most part, a fish meal diet.The plant based being cheaper to support the studys reason for the research in the first place.
All that said a extra $100.00/yr bucks(4 or 5 bags of feed) to me does not really matter, but to a fish farm, it is a big deal.
One thing that confused me until the end of the study was the two systems studied ie. the 10% cull and replace and the or study group no fish pulled,with the conclusions that maybe the dominance of the larger fish (hierarchy) to taking more feed,bla bla bla.
It appeared to me that their findings that the end total weight of each group was the same, was facinating. They found the larger fish culled were mostly,if not all males, which changes the ratio of male/female in the 10% cull group, and indicated to me that females CNBG do not grow as fast as the males. I think I want to keep a high % male CNBG in my pond to get the trophy size. Did I get it wrong?
Here is the link to the study and I hope to read some thought from others when you have the time:
https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/8874/research.pdf
