Abstract

• Aquaponics is the combined culture of fish and plants in recirculating systems (without soil). Aquaponics uses these two in a symbiotic combination in which plants are fed the waste from fish and in return, the vegetables clean the water that goes back to the fish. In the present study, GIFT Tilapia (109 ± 0.7g) was cultured with three different aquaponics systems to investigate the most appropriate aquaponics system for small scale culture. Three sets of aquaponics systems, Media Bed (MB), Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) and Deep Water Culture (DWC) were created to develop the aquaponics systems for tilapia and lettuce. A total of 40 fingerlings of GIFT tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) collected from Hlawga Hatchery Station, Yangon were introduced to each system. Then, 15 seedlings of lettuce were introduced to aquaponic system. Fish were fed floating pellet for 3% of body weight and cultured from January to May, 2020. The highest weight gains were found in DWC (10.3g) followed by MB (10.2g) and NFT (9.5g). The lowest food conversion ratio (FCR) was in DWC, followed by NFT and MB. For plant quality index, 11 plants of grade A were observed in DWC which were followed by 6 plants each in MB and NFT during the first harvest. In second harvest, plant quality index was observed that number of grade A plants was 8, 5 and 3 plants in DWC, NFT and MB, respectively. According to this study, DWC system shows the most favorable outcome for tilapia and lettuce aquaponic than other systems.