Growth and survival of tilapia Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus, 1758) submitted to different temperatures during the process of sex reversal

Abstract

The objective of this research was to evaluate the sex reversal technique using 17α--methyltestosterone (MT) hormone, submitted to temperature modification of fry Nilo tilapia storage, aiming to get the data of sex reversal combined with growth performance and fry survival. The experiment was performed at UFLA Fish Culture Station, using tilapia fry (0,008 ± 0.002 g e 0,9 ± 0.1 cm) obeying a totally randomized experimental delineation in a factorial scheme 4x4, in 4 temperatures (26º, 28º, 30º, 32ºC) and 4 hormonal doses (0, 20, 40, 60mg of MT/kg of ration) during 28 days, with 5 repetitions. As temperature raised, weight gain rate, size and survival increased (p<0.01); however, this temperature raise was not effective in modifying males ratio (p>0.01), which occurred only due to the used hormone treatment. The dose of 40 mg of MT/kg of ration provided similar results to those of 60mg of MT/kg of ration. Hence, the temperature band from 26º to 32ºC does not affect sex reversal rate, but temperatures around 30ºC improves the performance of tilapias related to the growth and survival, and the dose of 40 mg of MT/kg of ration is enough to achieve monosex populations.