Biological response of common carp fingerling (Cyprinus carpio Linnaeus, 1758) to complete feeding following short starvation and re-feeding: Daily growth changes, hyperphagia and the body indices

The goal of the study was to investigate the effects of short term starvation periods and following re-feeding on common carp fingerling growth response. The carps were fed in four feeding schedules as follows for two weeks: by 75% (RL75), 50% (RL50) and 25% (RL25) of apparent satiation and one starved group (RL0).After that they were fed completely for six weeks. These groups were compared to a control group which was fed to the apparent satiation during the experiment. Fish subjected to the initial starvations displayed compensatory growth, and the higher growth rate (SGR) during the recovery phase was achieved by hyperphagia (daily food intake of the body weight). Also, there was a significant relationship (SGR%= 0.55x – 0.45, r2 = 0.93) between the daily feed intake and daily growth rate of the fish groups. After two weeks, hepatosomatic indices of the fasted groups were smaller than the controls, while there were no significant differences in the indices between-treatment variations after re-feeding periods. Results showed that the carp fingerlings subjected to short periods of fasting respond to short starvation by increasing growth rate followed by hyperphagia to compensate the weight loss, rather than improved feed efficiency and feed utilization.