Nutritional Effects of Replacing Soybean Meal with Locust Bean (Parkia biglobossa) Meal on Growth and Feed Utilizations of Clarias gariepinus

Abstract

High cost of imported fish-meal is a major constraint to the growth of aquaculture in Nigeria. Five inclusion levels of locust bean seed meals were investigated after the seeds was boiled and fermented for two days, then sun-dried before being milled. Five iso-nitrogenous diets of 45% crude protein were formulated and the processed Parkia biglobossa meal was included to substitute soybean meal at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. The experimental diets were fed to the juveniles of Clarias gariepinus in an outdoor bowls for 77days to assess the growth performances of the fish to the diets. The highest mean weight gain recorded in the fish fed TD4 with 65.32±0.73G/fish and the lowest was recorded in the fish fed TD3 diet with 20.81±1.82g/fish. The highest value for Specific growth rate was obtained from the fish fed TD4 diet with 0.85±1.37% /day and the lowest was obtained in the fish fed TD3 diet with 0.43±1.27%/day. Highest final condition factor was recorded in the fish fed TD3 diet with 0.6630±1.28 and the lowest obtained in the fish fed TD1 diet with 0.5783. The highest feed conversion ratio value was recorded in the fish fed TD1 with 3.05±1.04 and the lowest value was recorded in the fish fed TD3 with 1.76±1.72. The proximate compositions of the experimental fish carcasses were better improved at the end of the experiment compared to the beginning of the experiment. The results obtained from this study implies that soybean meal could be substituted with locust bean meal in the diet of Clarias gariepinus to about 75% inclusion level for better and sustainable aquaculture practices.