Abstract:
Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is the most preferred cultured fish species in many tropical
and subtropical countries of the world. Nile tilapia is commercial importance in aquaculture
because of highly resistant to diseases, exhibit rapid growth, and efficient feed conversion, are
easy to breed, and have good consumer acceptance. However feed sources are main bottlenecks
for its aquaculture development. A three month’s feeding experiment was conducted to assess the
effects of various fruit vegetable leftover as alternative feedstuff on growth performance, survival
and proximate composition of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) fingerling in fish hapa. Each
treatment was carried out in duplicate, using 12Nile tilapia fingerling with an initial mean
weight of 9.7 ± 0.2 g. The basal diet and treatment feed was formulated at 35% crude protein
from the local available ingredients and treatment feed) used for this study was prepared from
banana, papaya, cabbage and potato. Four diets were formulated containing 0% fruit vegetable
leftover T1
, 25% as T2
fruit vegetable leftover and 50% fruit vegetable leftover as T3 and 75%
fruit vegetable leftover as T4 The fish were fed at 10% body weight twice per day. The water
quality parameters in the hapa were monitored once every two weeks. Fish growth was also
assessed by fortnightly sampling, the quantity of feed given being readjusted based on the
increase in weight. On termination of the study, all surviving fishes were collected and their
length and weight recorded. Fish whole tissues were analyzed for proximate composition using
standard methods. The tests revealed that, the weight gain values of all treatments had a
significant (p < 0.001) difference between each group. The weight gain results obtained showed
37.00 ± 0.14g fish that fed on 75% fruit vegetable leftover and was lower gained, while fish that
fed on 25% fruit vegetable leftover gained 53.67±0.47g was highest gained among the groups.
The survival rate of fish during study was good in all treatments, being 100 ± 0.00 in T2
. The
lowest survival was recorded in T4 (87.5± 0.007). The dietary inclusion 25% of fruit-vegetable
leftover, improved each of fish weight gain and other growth performance as well as the whole
fish body composition (crude protein and moisture) than control and other ratio of fruit
vegetable leftover. So, it is possible to feed fish the diets containing fruit-vegetable leftover
(25%) as replacement for dietary basal diet.
