Analysis of Leptobarbus hoevenii in Control Environment at Natural Lakes

Abstract

Leptobarbus hoevenii or its common name Ikan Jelawat is a high-value fish from family Cyprinidae, genus Leptobarbus are omnivorous fish that can grow up to 60 cm long. Due to human activities and the time change, this species has been depleted in Lake Chini. As an initiative from the Malaysian government, a conservation project for this species has been carried out. This article discussed the results on growth-up monitoring of L. hoevenii on the food and environment factor in conservation cage at Lake Chini. Monitoring of the grown-up, food and water quality of chemical composition was carried out for four months of this study. The results of statistical analysis showed, L. hoevenii growth is a positive rate with the Body Weight (BW) and Total Length (TL) on R² 0.986 and R² 0.988 respectively, by using floating type ‘grower pellet’, with 32% of protein. However, the Jemberau River basin is experiencing changes due logging and mining activities and that have affected to the chemical composition of the water quality and environmental. The iron content in the first week is ±0.0 mg L^-1 change to ±5.0 mg L^-1 and ±0.0 mg L^-1 to ±2.0 mg L^-1 for ammonia content in 10 weeks. The high content of the iron and ammonia on the water quality in the cage areas, effected for livestock to be stressed and also to the diet and growth-up of fish. 2500 of batch 1 L. hoevenii that has been released in Lake Chini showed they can be adapted to the local environment at the Laut Jemberau Lake, but take a time. Therefore, the closure of the Laut Jemberau Lake as fish conservation area is proposed to ensure that conservation objectives are achieved.