Evaluation of Clupeids and Danish fi sh meal based diets on the growth of African catfi sh, Clarias gariepinus fi ngerlings

Two experimental feeding trials were conducted concurrently to study the growth response of African catfi sh Clarias gariepinus fi ngerlings to graded levels (0, 5, 10, 15 or 20%) of clupeids in Danish fi sh meal (DFM) based diets. Chemical analysis of the DFM and clupeids fi sh meal (CFM) was carried out. Completely randomized design with triplicated groups of fi ngerlings were used for both trials in an indoor and out-door concrete tanks for six and twelve weeks respectively. The study aimed at achieving a cost effective fi sh meal from local aquatic resources (clupeids fi sh) highly prolifi c and abundant in Nigeria water bodies to replace foreign fi sh meal in West Africa Region. A project supported by West African Agricultural Productivity Project (WAAPP) in NIFFR, Nigeria. The results of proximate, amino acid profi le, mineral and fatty acid composition analysis of CFM indicated values which are very close to those of the DFM. The proximate analysis revealed CFM to contain 70.6% crude protein while DFM contains 72%. There were no signifi cant difference between the treatments with respect to fi nal weight, feed consumed, feed conversion ratio, digestibility and survival (P>0.05) although there was signifi cant difference in specifi c growth rate (P<0.05) with the highest value obtained in the diets with both fi sh meal at ratio 1:1. There were no signifi cant difference in haematological parameters (P>0.05). However the lymphocytes were high in all the groups which might not be particularly due to the treatments. The high proliferation of the body defence cells by the fi sh could be a mechanism of survival in the aqua-medium which is likely to be high in microbial load due to waste materials. Feed Cost/Kg for DFM was N260.16 while for CFM was N227.16. The results of chemical analysis and feeding trials indicated positive replacement of the DFM with CFM in fi sh feeds without negative effect on growth performance. Research Article Evaluation of Clupeids and Danish fi sh meal based diets on the growth of African catfi sh, Clarias gariepinus fi ngerlings Lenient MO Ibiyo1*, Rowland MO Kayode2, A Oresegun3, Oluwaseyi Mogaji1 and Felicia O Joshua1 1National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research (NIFFR), P.M.B. 6006, New Bussa, Niger State, Nigeria 2University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria 3Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research, P.M.B 12729, Victoria Island, Lagos How to cite this article: Ibiyo LMO, Kayode RMO, Oresegun A, Mogaji O, Joshua FO. Evaluation of Clupeids and Danish fi sh meal based diets on the growth of African catfi sh, Clarias gariepinus fi ngerlings. Arch Food Nutr Sci. 2018; 2: 031-037. https://doi.org/10.29328/journal.afns.1001014 Introduction Fish meal is an essential component of ish feed and it is important for good growth of ish resulting to a pro itable output in ish production. A large quantity of ish meal use for feed in West African Region is imported and it is very expensive [1]. Sixty to seventy (60-70) % cost of a kilogram of ish feed is borne by ish meal, so lowering the cost of ish meal could reduce the unit cost of ish feed. Research work on replacement of ish meal with blood meal [2], soybean [3], Tadpole meal [4], frog meal [5], live maggot and maggot meal [6,7], Moringa oleifera leaves [8] and some other by-products had only succeeded in reducing the level of inclusion of foreign ish meal in feed formulations. There is need for a local source of ish meal to totally replace the 20% of foreign ish meal (DFM) required to impact palatability, acceptability, enticing aroma, good growth performance on the ish feed for ish production. In an attempt to do this in poultry, Ojewole and Annah [9] evaluated cray ish dust meal and shrimp’s waste meal in replacement of DFM in broiler feeds. Results obtained from their study showed no signi icant difference. CFM was used *Address for Correspondence: Lenient MO Ibiyo, National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research (NIFFR), P.M.B. 6006, New Bussa, Niger State, Nigeria, Email: oniviemercy@yahoo.com Submitted: 19 November 2018 Approved: 03 December 2018 Published: 04 December 2018 Copyright: © 2018 Ibiyo LMO, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited


Introduction
Fish meal is an essential component of ish feed and it is important for good growth of ish resulting to a pro itable output in ish production. A large quantity of ish meal use for feed in West African Region is imported and it is very expensive [1]. Sixty to seventy (60-70) % cost of a kilogram of ish feed is borne by ish meal, so lowering the cost of ish meal could reduce the unit cost of ish feed. Research work on replacement of ish meal with blood meal [2], soybean [3], Tadpole meal [4], frog meal [5], live maggot and maggot meal [6,7], Moringa oleifera leaves [8] and some other by-products had only succeeded in reducing the level of inclusion of foreign ish meal in feed formulations. There is need for a local source of ish meal to totally replace the 20% of foreign ish meal (DFM) required to impact palatability, acceptability, enticing aroma, good growth performance on the ish feed for ish production. In an attempt to do this in poultry, Ojewole and Annah [9] evaluated cray ish dust meal and shrimp's waste meal in replacement of DFM in broiler feeds. Results obtained from their study showed no signi icant difference. CFM was used by Ibiyo et al. [10], to develop un-extruded loating ish feed which compared favourably with coppens feed (Foreign feed) in all the growth parameters evaluated. African cat ish (Clarias gariepinus Burchell 1822) is a well desired species in Culture in Nigeria due to its hardiness, good growth and lavoured lesh.
There is dearth of information regarding good quality local ish meal availability in West Africa Sub-Region. Clupeids ish produce abundantly in the Nigerian water bodies and is yet to be commercially exploited. This study aimed at making good quality local ish meal available so as to reduce cost of ish feed production to enable ish producers procure feed at lower cost for better income generation. This work was designed to harness the advantages of abundance and proli icacy of clupeids ish species to produce local ish meal to reduce its importation.

Materials and Methods
Clupeids ish was analysed for chemical (proximate, amino acid, mineral and fatty acids) composition for use in experimental feed formulation. Experimental feeds were formulated and produced by the inclusion of graded levels (0, 5, 10, 15 or 20) % of CFM into a basal diet containing 20% DFM in combination with soybean meal, groundnut cake, wheat offal, vegetable oil, starch, bone meal and micro ingredients (control) ( Table 1). Completely randomized design with triplicated groups of 8 and 30 ingerlings were used for both trials in an indoor 60x30x30cm 3 aquaria and 2x2x1m 3 out-door concrete tanks for six and twelve weeks respectively. Growth performance data collection was after two weeks acclimatization. The ingerlings with average weight of 11.2 ± 2.9g were 10 weeks old from day of hatching to commencement of the study. The aquaria and concrete tanks has a capacity of 60 and 4000 litres of water respectively but were illed to two-third level for the culture to avoid swim out of the ish. Twenty ingerlings were used to determine the initial proximate composition.
Fish were fed 5% body weight daily, divided into two parts with one half given morning (0800 -0900) and the other evenings (1600 -1700) hours. Feeding of ish was carried out after siphoning waste materials and some water each morning with 20 litres freshwater addition to minimize pollution of the aquaria. Fortnight Sampling was adopted to monitor weight, health status and subsequently feed adjustment in both experiments. The water quality parameters were monitored at weekly intervals during the experimental period. The P-701 pH-meter was used for pH measurements. Ammonia and nitrite were measured with the aid of a visible spectrophotometer after it had been treated with Nessler's reagent. Digestibility trial was undertaken in the in-door after the irst four weeks. 1% chromic-oxide was added to the feed at pelleting for this purpose. Weighed feed based on ration per day were given and three days collections of faecal materials was adopted. The feeding trials lasted 42 days and 84 days in the indoor and outdoor respectively. At the end of the feeding trials, inal physical measurements were taken and four ish per replicate were randomly selected to obtain blood sample, viscera organs and carcass for inal proximate analysis and histhopathological examination.

Chemical analyses
Analyses of the ish meal, feed, faecal samples were carried out following the procedures of AOAC [11]. Nitrogen was measured following the micro-Kjeldahl methods. Amino acids were measured after acid hydrolysis of protein using the Pico Tag method [12] and high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Sulphur amino acids (Cysteine or methionine) were measured separately using similar methods after oxidation with performic acid. Chromic oxide in feed was measured following methods described by Cho and Kaushik [13]. Haematological values were measured following standard methods [14][15][16] and Dacie et al. [17]. Mineral content was determined by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer analysis.
Data obtained were subjected to one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using SPSS Version 15.0 for windows according to the statistical principle of Steel and Torrie [18]. Where ANOVA identi ied signi icant difference, means were separated using Duncan Multiple Range Test [19] by setting the aggregate type -1 error at 5% level.

Chemical analysis of reference and test ingredients
Proximate Composition: The results of proximate composition analysis of the reference (DFM) and the test (CFM) ingredients are presented in igure 1. The clupeids' crude protein content (C.P.) 70.68% is not signi icantly different from the 72.60% C.P. of DFM (P<0.05). Figure 2 showed the amino acids' pro ile of the two ish meals. The values of amino acids (AA) of both are not far from each other but CFM was higher in all AA. However, it was interesting to note that the sulphur amino acids (methionine and cysteine) values were also higher in CFM than in DFM despite the limiting nature of these amino acids in most feedstuff especially plant materials.

Mineral Composition of CFM and DFM:
The mineral composition showed in igure 3, indicated higher quantities of phosphorus and potassium for CFM. Minerals play vital roles in osmo-regulation as well as nervous and muscular activities. Generally, the analytical results showed an indication of the CFM being able to replace the DFM in ish feed. The high levels of minerals could help reduce the quantity of bone meal use in ish feeds if CFM is used in formulations.

Growth performance of C. gariepinus fed diets with graded levels of CFM
There was no signi icant difference between the treatments in most of the parameters evaluated (P>0.05; Figures 4,6). The results of the indoor and outdoor studies indicated positive replacement of the DFM with CFM without negative effect on growth performance. Similar results were obtained when soybean [3], live maggot and maggot meal [6,7] replaced 25-50% ish meal in C. gariepinus diets and cray ish dust meal and shrimp waste meal totally replaced DFM in broiler diets [9]. In all, there was a reduction in feed cost. Floatation of un-extruded feed was possible with CFM [10] and not with DFM. Ability of un-extruded feed to loat with CFM use is an added advantage for ish farmers in the West African Sub-region who cannot afford feed extrusion machine but a simple pelleting machine for feed production.

Survival, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and specifi c growth rate (SGR) of C. gariepinus
Mortality of ish occurred across the 5 treatments which might not be associated with the treatment ( Figure 5). There might be other unexplained factors responsible for the mortality observed in the irst 3 weeks into the experiments. It might be connected to adjustments into the experimental system. The mean FCR obtained with the diets in this present experiment were in the range of 1.28 to 1.5 in the indoor and 1.09 to 1.35 out-door. Although FCR is dependent on ration as driving force of growth with temperature as a major factor controlling the force as it affects utilization [20]. From the water quality parameter monitored, the temperature was not outside the range recommended by Boyld [21]. High conductivity values were observed among other water quality parameter which was ameliorated by the reduction of water and replenishing with freshwater. These translated to an average SGR of 2.1 -3.2 % day -1 as was also observed in heteroclarias by Salami et al. [22], when 40% C.P diet was fed in a 12 weeks rearing (Plate 1).

Haematological parameters of Clarias gariepinus
There was no signi icant differences in haemoglobin content (Hb), packed cell volume (PCV) and red blood count (RBC) (P>0.05) [23]. However, there were signi icant difference between the treatments with respect to white blood count (WBC) and mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) (P<0.05). These differences might be due to reaction of the ish body system as a means of survival in the habitat which could have contributed to the differences in proliferation of the defence cell (WBC). The habitat was likely to be having microbial load due to waste materials in the system. The haematological results were within the range reported by Erondu et al. (1992), for a healthy Clarias gariepinus when he studied four cat ish species (Table 2).

Feed cost analysis
Feed Cost/Kg for diets 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were N260.16, N251.91, N243.66, N235.45 and N227.16 respectively base on ingredient prevailing price at the time of experimentation. Economic analysis of feed production indicated a reduction of feed cost as clupeids increases in the diet. The cost of production is a determinant of the likely revenue from the ish production venture.

Conclusion
The results indicated CFM as a good local resource that can replace DFM without a negative effect on good growth performance of ish. There was also a reduction in feed cost with total use of local resources. A bag of 15 kg of foreign feed which cost N9,000.00 in New Bussa can be produced at N6,500.00 with local resources. There will be need to try the CFM in diets of other ish species cultured in West African region.

Recommendation
* Fish farmers can conveniently use CFM in ish feed with expectations of increased income.
* There is need of a ish meal processing plant to receive clupeids ish trawl by ishermen directly instead of the sun drying used in this experiment.
* The processing plant can assist in improving the quality of the ish meal produced from clupeids.