Effects Of Diets With Plant-Based And Animal-Based Ingredients On The Growth And Gonadal Development Of Clarias gariepinus.pdf

An experiment was conducted to study the effects of substituting Soyabean meal with Moringa oleifera seedmeal on the growth performance of Clarias gariepinus in the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management, Michael Okpara university of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria. One hundred and twenty African Catfish fingerlings of mean weight 11.3±0.3g were used. Four treatments (0- control, 5, 10 and 15% labeled Treatment 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively) of M. oleifera seed meal replacement of soyabean meal were assigned in a completely randomized design to ten fish per treatment placed in 50L of water in triplicates. Sampling was done every two week and data obtained were used to extrapolate the specific growth rate (SGR), feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), weight gain and percentage survival. Results showed that, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in weight gain and final weight for all the treatments. There were no significant differences (p>0.05) amongst Treatments 3 and 4 for FCR, SGR, and PER; however, there were significant differences (p < 0.05) between both and the other treatments. The results revealed that, 10% M. oleifera seed meal can be substituted for soyabean in C. gariepinus feed. Keywords: Fish feed, crude protein, fish growth, feed cost.