Replacement of Herring Fish Meal by Soybean Flour in Practical Diets for Red Tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus × O. mossambicus, Grown in Concrete Tanks

Abstract

ABSTRACT A feeding experiment was conducted for 100 days to evaluate the suitability of soybean flour (SBF) as a partial or complete substitute for the protein supplied by herring fish meal (HFM) in diets for growth of red tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus ×O. mossambicus, fingerlings (mean weight of 0.65 g/fish) grown outdoors in concrete tanks. Five isonitrogenous and isocaloric diets containing 35% crude protein and 3.36 kcal of digestible energy (DE)/g of diet were formulated in which SBF replaced 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the protein supplied by HFM. Results demonstrated that SBF has good potential as a substitute protein source for up to 75% of the protein supplied by HFM (diet 4) in red tilapia diets with no significant (P>0.05) adverse effects on growth, feed efficiency, body composition, and apparent digestibility of protein compared to the HFM-based control diet. The highest growth performance and best economic efficiency of fish weight gain were obtained with fish fed diet contained 50% of the protein from HFM and the other 50% from SBF. Fish fed this diet had the highest weight gain (11.95 g/fish), percent increase in weight (1838%) and growth rate (0.120 g/day) among fish fed all the other test diets. The lowest feed efficiency and growth performances were shown in the fish fed diet containing SBF as a complete substitute for protein supplied by HFM. Fish fed this diet had the lowest weight gain (4.70 g/fish), percent increase in weight (723%) and growth rate (0.047 g/day) among fish fed all the other test diets. Survival of fish was not statistically different (P>0.05) among all treatments. The apparent protein digestibility values showed wide variation between diets, ranging from 70.13% to 82.12% and the values were remarkably high in fish fed SBF-based diets. At the conclusion of the study, substituting HFM-protein with SBF-protein in diets for red tilapia did not affect the final fish protein, ash and moisture contents, but lipid content was significantly higher (P <0.05) in fish fed diets in which SBF substituted for 50% or more of the protein supplied by HFM. Hematological characteristics of red tilapia were examined at the end of the study and the results showed that all the blood parameter values were within normal values for fish. Economic analysis of diets suggested the possibility of using SBF as an alternative source of protein in red tilapia diets.