Abstract
Nutrition is the main factor determining the potential of farmed fish to exhibit their growth capacity as a function of the protein content and certain additives contained in their diet. Thus, the present study was conducted to assess dietary supplementation effects of ginger and garlic as feed additives on growth, feed utilization and whole-body composition in Clarias gariepinus fry. Following a 24 h fasting, 525 fry weighing 1.2 ± 0.01 g were randomly divided in triplicate into five treatments of 105 fish each and fed for 56 days. In treatment T0, fry was fed with control basal diet, in treatments T1 and T2, fry was fed with basal diet containing 1% and 2% ginger, while in treatments T3 and T4, fry was fed on basal diet supplemented with 1% and 2% garlic. Fish were fed at the rate of 10% of their body weight and every 14 days, intermediate fish sampling was done during which fry per treatment was counted, measurements taken on a representative sample and the feeding rate adjusted. Main water parameters were recorded daily before feeding. After the feeding trial, fish fed 1% (T3) garlic had the best growth performance in term of final weight (33.01 ± 2.99 g), weight gain (WG) (31.81 ± 0.99 g), specific growth rate (SGR) (5.86 ± 0.16%/d) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (1.25 ± 0.11) which was significantly different from other treatments, particularly T0 which had the lowest growth performances (final weight (17.02 ± 0.27 g), WG (15.81 ± 0.28 g), SGR (4.73 ± 0.03%/d) and FCR (2.03 ± 0.01)). Similar trend to growth parameters was found with whole-body composition (moisture, crude protein, crude lipid, ash, and energy) and nutrient retention. In conclusion, C. gariepinus fry fed 1% dietary inclusion level of garlic has had better growth, feed utilization and body composition, which has been more attributed to its physiological and pharmacological properties than its nutritional effects.
Highlights
Fish is highly nutritive and is the main source of animal protein for around one billion people worldwide [1]
It is noted that whatever the treatment, fry growth which is faster during the first weeks of feeding, gradually decreases with the increase of the experimental period
At the end of the culture period, fish fed on diet T3 containing 1% of garlic powder have presented a specific growth rate value of 5.86 ± 0.16%g/d), significantly high (p < 0.05) by 19.28%, 10.10%, 11.10% and 6.82% as compared to treatments T0 (4.73 ± 0.04%g/d), T1 (5.27 ± 0.14%g/d), T2 (5.21 ± 0.21%g/d) and T4 (5.46 ± 0.11%g/d)
Summary
Fish is highly nutritive and is the main source of animal protein for around one billion people worldwide [1]. Clarias gariepinus exhibits numerous advantageous characteristics for cultivation such as rapid growth, good survival in high density culture, tolerance to low oxygen levels as well as pH fluctuations, and resistance to diseases [5] It requires high quality feeds with high protein content and some additives or dietary supplements to keep fish healthy and to enhanced growth [6] [7]. Ginger as well as garlic being natural and readily available additives, has been reported to promote various activities like anti-stress, immunostimulation, appetite stimulation, and growth promotion in fish [10] [11] [12] Their inclusion in fish diet might be a possible solution to the inadequacy of table fish supply in Cameroon in general, increasing the
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