Evaluation of Various Fruit-Vegetable Leftover as Alternative Feedstuff on Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Growth Performance and Survival in Hapa, Jimma University, Southwestern Ethiopia

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.