Tilapia can handle 25% duckweed in diet
Determining the nutritive potential of duckweed meal (DWM) as an animal protein concentrate in fish feeding was the subject of a feeding trial. Researchers evaluated growth response and nutrient utilisation, with promising results.
In the study, performed by Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria, 225 Tilapia (Oreochromisniloticus) fingerlings of 50g average weight were assigned randomly in groups of 15 to control diet (CD) and 4 other diets: D2 ,D3, D4 and D5 containing DWM. The treatments were replicated 3 times.
It was shown that diets had significant effects (p<0.01) on mean weight gain (mwg), average daily weight gain (adwg), percentage weight gain (pwg), feed conversion ratio (fcr), protein efficiency ratio (per) total protein intake (tpi). initially, fish increases in weight as feed intake increased and the dietary inclusion of dwm increases up to 25% with an improved feed conversion however, the reverse was the case as the dwm dietary inclusion level increased beyond this level in the tilapia diet.>
25% is optimum
100% DWM inclusion recorded the least MWG, PER and highest FCR followed by 75% DWM inclusion. The study clearly showed that fish fed diet with 25% duckweed dietary inclusion (treatment II) perform excellently well compared to other treatments. Therefore Oreochromisniloticus can tolerate up to 25% duckweed in its diet.
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