KELANGSUNGAN HIDUP DAN PERTUMBUHAN KAN CARDINAL TETRA Paracheirodon axelrodi PADA WARNA WADAH PEMELIHARAAN YANG BERBEDA

Cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrodi) is one of the freshwater ornamental fishes which is commonly reared for improving a beauty of aquascape. Cardinal tetra has already been widely cultivated in Indonesia. Some culturing problems arose are environment adaptation and seed size that affect the survival and growth. This study aimed to investigate the effect of culture container color on the growth performance and survival rate of P. axelrodi. The experiment used fries of 1.0 ± 0.2 cm length, with stocking density of 5 individuals/L. The method used was an experimental method of completely randomized design (CRD). Five treatments with three replicates were used in the study. The treatments used were color container, including: A. Black (control), B. White, C. Red. D. Blue, and E. Yellow . Parameters measured were survival rate, daily growth rate, the growth of body length and quality of water (temperature, pH, DO and ammonia). The results showed that the container color did not give any significant effect on the fish survival rate (P> 0.05), while on the contrary, it gave highly significant effect (P<0.01) on the daily growth rate and the body lengh growth. The highest survival rate was obtained in the treatment of yellow and blue (100 ± 0.00%) containers. The highest daily growth rate was obtained in the yellow color treatment (4.12 ± 0.182%), and the highest body length growth was obtained in yellow color treatment (0.66 ± 0.016 cm). The best performance of cardinal tetra culture was obtained the yellow container treatment. The water quality during the observation was in the range: 25,5-270 C temperature, pH 6.0 to 6.5, DO from 5.14 to 6.93 mg/L, ammonia 0.0042-0.0059 mg/L, and the light intensity of 5575 lux.