Channa striata commonly known as striped snakehead is a high valued fish and cultured on commercial scale in many countries in the Asia Pacific region. Considering the success in hatchery breeding technique for this species in India and other countries, there has been a growing interest to develop the proper feeding protocol for the early larval stage of this species. In the present study, different combinations of feed and feeding protocols for first feeding larvae (60 hrs post hatching) of C. striata were evaluated in laboratory trials for 28 days. This study was carried out at Air-breathing Fish Breeding and Culture Unit, ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, Bhubaneswar. Experimental design consisted of five distinct experimental groups (T1- fed with commercially available larval diet, T2- fed with freshly hatched Artemia nauplii, T3- fed with a combination of freshly hatched Artemia nauplii and commercial larval diet , T4- fed with mixed zooplankton, T5- mixed zooplankton and commercial feed in combination) in triplicate following a completely randomized design. Forty numbers of 60 hours old larvae were released in 15 litres capacity aquariums filled with 12 L of well oxygenated fresh water. Sampling to measure the length of individuals was done on 14th and 28th day of the experiment while the weight was measured at the end of the experiment on 28th day. In this study, complete mortality of larvae was observed in T1 within 7 days of the trial period. The treatment fed with artemia nauplii only (T2) had the maximum mean individual length (17.53 ± 0.21 mm) at 14 days which was significantly different (P<0.05) from other treatments while at the end of 28 days, treatment fed with mixed zooplankton and commercial feed in combination (T5) had the maximum mean individual length (30.46 ± 0.53 mm) and weight (266.83 ± 11.804 mg) followed by T4, T3 and T2 respectively. This indicated Artemia nauplii as a suitable diet for C. striata during first 14 days but mixed zooplankton or combination of zooplalnkton and commercial inert diet should be used after 14 days for faster growth. The study also concludes that acceptance of inert diet by C. striata larvae sets in 16-17 days after hatching. Another interesting observation was that co-feeding promotes size heterogeneity and cannibalism among the individuals of the population probably because of the differential preference of the animals to inert diet and consequent emergence of dominance hierarchies. At the end of the experiment highest survival percentage of 91.66 ± 2.204 % was observed in T4 followed by T2, T3 and T5 respectively.