Decrease in Energy Level Due to Copper Toxicity on Fry of Fresh Water Edible Fish, Pangasianodon Hypophthalmus

Cheapest readily available and important animal protein is fish, which is involved in socio-economic, ecological, health and aesthetic sense of man. As India is blessed with abundant water bodies, there is enormous potential for blue revolution to expand further. Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization copper in particular acted as one of the environmental contaminant, and is both an essential micronutrient as well as toxicant if present in more than required amounts especially in fish. Bioaccumulation studies show that Pangasianodon hypophthalmus fry accumulated the metal on exposure to sublethal concentration of copper. It was also found that the accumulation of the metal increased with increasing exposure period. Due to this energy levels from food of control fry showed a increase with increasing time. However, there was a significant decrease (P less than 0.05) in exposed fish fry over their respective controls from 96 hrs to 30 days. Initially, a slight decrease was observed up to 48 hrs in exposed fry but later the highest (23.3 %) decrease was noticed at 20 days. On 30 days of exposure a decrease of 22.65 % was observed. The present investigation provides the base-line data in monitoring copper or metal-induced stress on fresh water fish fry in general and Pangasianodon hypophthalmus fry in particular.