THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT PROTEIN SOURCES IN SUPPLEMENTARY FEEDS ON TILAPIA (OREOCHROMIS NILOTICUS) IN FLOATING NET-CAGES

Abstract

The effect of locally available protein sources including fish meal (FM), soya bean meal (SBM), groundnut cake (GNC), and blood meal (BM)) at 25% inclusion level in pelleted feeds (layer's concentrate corn bran in ratio 1:3, and premix 1.0% ) were tested on tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in floating net-cages. 0. niloticus fingerlings with mean weight, of 20.0gk0.84, were stocked at 50 fis11/m3 and fed the different feeds at 50h body weight for a 120-day culture period. GNC in feed (28.02% crude protein, CP) performed best in terms of daily weight gain, final average weight fish, feed conversion ratio (FCR), specific growth rate (SGR) and total fish production; closely followed by BM in feed (40.28% CP) hut worst performance was in fish fed FM in feed (33.27%CP). The mean total fish production (kg/m3) in treatment receiving GNC in feed was significantly different from mean total fish production in all the remaining three treatments (P<0.05)