Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate if the soybean meal incorporation in locally made diet will improves the growth and survival performances of fry of Nile tilapia in rural area of Senegal. A completely randomized design with four treatments of soybean meal incorporation (0, 15, 30 and 32%) was utilized in this study. The formulated diets had 35% crude protein content. The fingerlings were fed to satiation two times a day at 9 AM and 4 PM for 56 days. The analysis of variance showed final weight, specific growth rate and percent weight gain of fish increased significantly (<I>P </I>< 0.05) as soybean meal was added up to 30% level. The feed conversion ratio values were high and decreased significantly (<I>P </I>< 0.05) with the increase of soybean meal in the diet, ranging from 2.17 to 2.90. There was also a significant difference (<I>P </I>< 0.05) in survival among treatment, survival ranged from 62.22% to 91.11%. Except temperature, the water quality parameters were in the optimal range of <i>O. niloticus</i>. In conclusion, the result of this study shows that soybean meal can be added to up to 30% in the <i>O. niloticus</i> diet, without affecting growth performances.
Highlights
The fish-farming sector has not yet reached a viable economic dimension in Africa, either in terms of volume or in terms of the place of this activity in other production systems [1]
Fish meal is considered as the most nutritious animal ingredients in fish feed formulation but his cost makes many researches to turn on soybean meal which is the most nutritious plants ingredients in term of protein and it’s widely used diet [3]
The present study shows that for Nile tilapia, increasing soybean meal in diet leads to increased body weight gain and specific growth rates up to 30% inclusion, and that no further improvement in growth rate and specific growth rate are achieved from 30 to 60% inclusion, indicating that 30% inclusion could represent a break point
Summary
The fish-farming sector has not yet reached a viable economic dimension in Africa, either in terms of volume or in terms of the place of this activity in other production systems [1]. Oreochromis niloticus, is an important fish for aquaculture production in the north of Senegal. This species is able to tolerate environmental stress, reproduce grow at a fast rate coupled with a high market demand [2]. Fish feed is the key component of aquaculture production and it’s expensive cost caused failure in many farms. As in most aquaculture programs, reducing feeds cost is a permanent concern due to its direct impact on the cost of production
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