Growth performance and serum composition of Heteroclarias fed Moringa oleifera leaf meal based diet

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to determine the growth performance and serum composition of hybrid catfish Heteroclarias fed Moringa oleifera leaf meal based diet as a feed additive.At the start of the experiment, twelve glass aquaria of size 70cm x 45cmx 40cm each filled with well water up to 70% of its volume were stocked with 120 fingerlings (mean weight 2.2 ± 0.04) at 30 fish per treatment, replicated thrice in a completely randomized design. Four experimental diets (D1–D4) including the control were formulated to be isocalorific (12.2kcal/kg) and isonitrogenous (40% crude protein) the fish were fed twice daily at 8:00 – 9:00 and 18:00 – 19:00 hours at 5% of their body weight. The body weights were determined weekly for a period of ten weeks. About 2ml of blood were collected by direct cardiac puncture before and after the experiment into the sterile plastic test tubes without anticoagulant. The fish weight gain (WG), feed conversion ratio (FCR), specific growth rate (SGR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), protein intake (PI), survival and mortality were determined. After 70 days of the experiment, the highest fish weight gain and best results in food conversion ratio (FCR) were obtained in D2 formulated with 10% Moringa oleifera leaf meal (8.26 ± 0.13g, 2.45 ± 0.04) respectively. The final weight gain, feed intake and specific growth rate were significantly higher (P