LAUSR

Heterogenous growth, which is common among farmed fish, can be remedied by size grading. This study focused on whether the size grading process, which is commonly practiced in aquaculture, improves the subsequent growth performance of the Pacific shortfin eel Anguilla bicolor pacifica. Eels (338.70 ± 4.70 mm total length (TL); 84.93 ± 1.87 g body weight (BW)) were initially reared for 60 days (pre-size grading period) and manually divided into three size groups: small (≤ 115 g); large (> 150 g); and mixed (> 115 g but < 170 g), all maintained at 5 kg m-3 density and reared until day 150 (size grading period). Following size grading, mean BW and TL at harvest significantly differed in all eel groups, suggesting growth was size-specific. However, at day 150, except for biomass, size grading had no significant effect on growth and survival, coefficient variation of length and weight, and Fulton's condition factor. Large eels had a significantly higher feed intake than mixed or small eels while feed efficiency did not differ among eel groups. Results suggest that size grading promote size-specific growth but did not improve the overall growth performance of yellow stage of A. bicolor pacifica. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.