Study of Food and Feeding Habit, Hepatosomatic & Gonadosomatic Index and Sex Ratio of an Indigenous Ornamental Fish, Banded Gourami (Colisa Fasciatus, Bloch & Schneider)

Abstract

Banded Gourami (Colisa fasciatus, Bloach and Schneider) is a peaceful, hardy and very popular indigenous ornamental fish belonging to the family Belontidae. It is small in size, available in rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and inundated areas of India. A total of 550 fishes were collected from Howrah ornamental fish centre (Bengal Aquaculture, Howrah) during the month of January, 2009 to study the food and feeding habit, gonadosomatic index (GSI), hepatosomatic index (HSI), testes weight (TO), ovary weight (OW), length, body weight and sex ratio. For the study of food and feeding habit 50 fish species were preserved in 4% formalin immediately after collection and carried to the CIFE, Kolkata Centre laboratory. Gut content of these fishes were analyzed and food items were identified and analysed. The fish species studied, had a great affinity to zooplankton, phytoplankton and other food items available in natural conditions. The gonadosomatic index (GSI) and hepatosomatic index (HSI) varied from 0.32 to 0.91% and 0.3 to 0.68% in male and 0.22 to 0.95% and 0.22 to 0.56% in female, respectively. The total length ranged from 5.8cm (3.11g) to 8.4cm (8.11g) in male and 6.3cm (4.19g) to 9cm (9.21g) in female, The ovary weight (OW) ranged from 0.01 to 0.09g and testes weight (TW) ranged from 0.01 to 0.08g. The male to female ratio ranged from 1.22:0.78 to 1.64:0.3.