Abstract
Growth performance, feed utilization, survival and body indices of African catfish Clarias gariepinus juveniles fed diets containing maggot meal as replacement of fish meal was evaluated for 42 days. Sixty fingerlings of Clarias gariepinus, average weight of 10 g were randomly distributed into six circular tanks at the rate of 10 fish per tank. There were two treatments, DT1(maggot meal-based diet) and DT2 (fish meal-based diet). The fish were fed twice daily. Water quality parameters were monitored on a weekly basis throughout the experimental period. Growth, nutrient utilization and body indices parameters were evaluated at the end of the experiment. Crude protein, crude lipid and ash were higher in the fish meal-based diet (34.65%, 7.33% and 18.03% in DT2 as against 28.70%, 7.20% and 11.0.1% in DT1 respectively), while crude fibre was higher in maggot meal-based diet. The selected water quality parameters: temperature, dissolved oxygen, ammonia and pH were slightly lower in maggot meal based treatment, but none of them was differently significant. Mean weight gain, specific growth rate, protein intake, protein efficiency ratio, lipid intake and lipid efficiency ratio (17.25±0.70 g, 2.39±0.06 %/day, 95.50±1.27 g, 1.81±0.06, 23.96±0.32 g and 7.20±0.24 respectively) were all significantly higher in DT2. The feed conversion ratio was higher significantly in DT1. Survival, hepatosomatic index and condition factor were similar between the two treatments. Though the aforementioned body indices indicated that the total replacement of fish meal with maggot meal is not harmful to the fish, a partial replacement may be better for optimum output
Highlights
The world food fish production is tending towards reliance on aquaculture, as capture fisheries is facing increased challenges of over exploitation of stocks, aquatic pollution and climate change with the attendant consequences of reduced quantity of fish catch (Dauda et al, 2018a)
Maggot meal is a quality protein source produced from waste material of either plant or animal origin, with crude protein content of between 43 and 48%. (Fasakin et al, 2003; Aniebo et al, 2009; Michael and Sogbesan, 2015)
There was no significant difference between the defatted maggot meal treatments and fish meal treatment
Summary
The world food fish production is tending towards reliance on aquaculture, as capture fisheries is facing increased challenges of over exploitation of stocks, aquatic pollution and climate change with the attendant consequences of reduced quantity of fish catch (Dauda et al, 2018a). In Nigeria, aquaculture production is growing steadily albeit some constraints Among these constraints, cost of fish feed is classified as a major constraint (Dauda et al, 2015). There have been continuous efforts to either reduce fish meal inclusion or totally replace it with some other feed ingredients. More readily available protein sources are plant proteins, but many of them can only serve for partial and not total replacement. Most researchers opined that fish meal can only be partially replaced with plant protein sources (Daniel, 2018). The needs to continuously seek potentially cheaper animal sources that can effectively replace fish meal. Fasakin et al (2003) replaced fish meal with differently processed maggot meals, sun-dried full-fat, defatted oven-dried and defatted sun-dried. Further treatment of maggot meal by defattening may increase the cost of production of the maggot
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