Cannibalism and Performance Evaluation of Hybrids between Clarias batrachus and Clarias gariepinus

Cannibalism is an important characteristic of African catfish that significantly reduces the number of stocked fish at harvest. This study evaluates the effect of reciprocal hybridization of Clarias batrachus and Clarias gariepinus on cannibalism and growth performance of their progenies in an indoor rearing system. The result obtained reveals excellent performance of hybrids of C. gariepinus ♂ and C. batrachus ♀ over the purebreds in terms of growth. However, the reciprocal hybrids between C. gariepinus ♀ and C. batrachus ♂ all died few hours after hatching. Cannibalism was significantly reduced in the crosses between C. gariepinus ♂ and C. batrachus ♀ with 100% survival after five months of culture. Hence, this could be exploited in commercial production of catfish to reduce cannibalism and increase harvest size of fish farmers.