The purpose of this study was to optimize the Nile tilapia production in ponds based on improved farm management practices in Rwanda. An experiment was carried out at Kigembe National Fish Centre in Rwanda whereby six ponds of 53 m2 of surface area, depth of m at inlet and at the outlet each were prepared and stocked with all males Nile tilapia fingerlings of an average weight of 10g | Journal of Fisheries science and Technology - 2016 OPTIMIZATION OF NILE TILAPIA (OREOCHROMIS NILOTICUS) PRODUCTION IN PONDS BASED ON IMPROVED FARM MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN RWANDA Ndorimana Jean Claude1, Nguyen Van Tien2, Pham Quoc Hung1 Received: 02/6/2016; Revised: 01/9/2016; Accepted: 26/9/2016 ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to optimize the Nile tilapia production in ponds based on improved farm management practices in Rwanda. An experiment was carried out at Kigembe National Fish Centre in Rwanda whereby six ponds of 53 m2 of surface area, depth of m at inlet and m at the outlet each were prepared and stocked with all males Nile tilapia fingerlings of an average weight of 10g. Out of nine ponds three treatments (2 fingerlings/m2, 4 fingerlings/m2 and 6 fingerlings/m2) with 2 replicates each were set up. The key variables to gauge were survival, growth rate and feed conversion ratio (FCR) through an improved farm management practices including good feeding, good fertilisation, controls of predators and water quality. The study was conducted for a period of 4 months (15th January-15th May 2014). The data were analysed using SPSS software. The results showed that the survival rate (SR) was above 80% and did not significantly differ among treatments (P>). Regarding the SGR and FCR there was a significant difference between the treatment 1 and the remaining treatments 2 and 3. Specifically, fish have grown faster in the treatment 1 and used the supplied feeds more effectively. We compared the obtained production results with the ones registered by farmers and realized that with the improved farm management practices we can expect to attain 4,364 kg/ha/year for the first treatment by which we applied the stocking density with that applied by farmers, while the high production obtained by farmers was 3,500 kg/ha/year. With the adoption of improved farm management practices we managed to increase 864 kg of fish/ha/year. Since the major production cost
