Growth performance and carcass composition of African catfish, Clarias gariepinus fed different protein and energy levels

A feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary crude protein and energy levels on the live weight (LW), daily weight gain (DWG), feed conversion rate (FCR), feed efficiency (FE), protein efficiency rate (PER), survival rate (SR), specific growth rate (SGR), thermal growth coefficient (TGC) and carcass composition of catfish (Clarias gariepinus). In this trial a group of ۸۰ catfish were randomly assigned per tank in ۳ replicates and fed different levels combination of crude protein and energy, viz: three levels of crude protein (CP) (۳۲; ۳۴; and ۳۶%) with digestible protein (DP) (۲۷; ۳۹; and ۴۱%) and three levels of digestible energy (DE) (۱۱.۹; ۱۲.۴; and ۱۳.۳%) for ۸ weeks. At the end of experiment, the results showed that the highest LW, DWG, SGR and TGC were found in fish fed ۳۴% CP: ۳۹% DP: ۱۲.۴% DE. The better FCR was reached in fish fed ۳۶% CP: ۴۱%DP: ۱۲.۴% DE whereas highest PER was in fish fed ۳۴% CP: ۳۹% DP: ۱۳.۳% DE. Meanwhile, fish fed ۳۶%CP: ۴۱% DP: ۱۲.۴% DE resulted in significantly higher FE. However, the SR of fish was not affected by any combination of CP: DP: DE. This finding indicated that ۳۴% CP: ۳۹% DP: ۱۲.۴% DE was the optimum combination in enhancing the growth of catfish.

Keywords:

Clarias gariepinus , Digestible protein and energy , Growth