DETERMINATION OF NUTRITIVE COMPOSITION AND EFFECT OF INCLUSION LEVEL OF FISH OFFAL COMPOSITE IN THE DIET OF Heterobranchus bidorsalis FINGERLINGS

This experiment was conducted to determine the nutritive composition and effect of inclusion
level of composite fish offal in diets of Heterobranchus bidosalis fingerlings. Five diets of
T1(0%), T2(25%), T3(50%), T4(75%) and T5(100%) levels of composite fish offal substitutions
were formulated to contain 40% crude protein and similar energy levels. The feeding trial was
carried out for period of 56 days. A total of 150 fingerlings was randomly distributed into three
replicates of five experimental groups in a 35liters capacity plastic bowl using Completely
Randomized Design (CRD). Each replicate consists of 10 fish with a mean weight of 4.00±0.2g.
At the end of the experiment, results showed that Weight Gain (WG), Survival Rate (SR), Feed
Conversion Ratio (FCR) and Feed Efficiency (FE) of T1 were observed to be statistically
P>0.05 similar with T2 and T3. The water quality parameters showed that the culture medium
was within the optimal level. The study showed that diets with inclusion rate of 25% to 50%
composite fish offal gave similar result as that fed with control diet. Therefore, it was concluded
that fish composite with inclusion rate of 25% to 50% could be fed to H. bidorsalis catfish
without any negative effects on the growth and survival.