International Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Research

Authors
IA Adebayo, BW Obe

Abstract
A feeding trial was conducted to investigate the effect of replacing menhaden fish meal (65%Crude Protein) with corn gluten meal (60% Crude Protein) at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% inclusion levels in the practical diets of Clarias gariepinus juveniles. One hundred and fifty (150) juvenile’s fish with initial mean weight of 3.54±0.05g were stocked randomly into fifteen (15) glass aquaria tanks at 10 fish/tank in five treatments with three replicates each. The experimental diets were iso-nitrogenous (45%Crude Protein) and iso-caloric (11.1kcal/kg). Using a complete randomized design, each diet was fed to the test fish for 70days. The highest weight gain was recorded in the fish fed D3 (12.74±0.34)g containing 50% inclusion level of corn gluten meal (CGM) and the least weight gain was in the fish fed D5(9.33±0.36) with 100% inclusion level of CGM. Specific growth rate (SGR) ranged from 1.69 to 1.84; feed conversion ratio (FCR) ranged between1.23% to 1.64%; protein efficiency ratio (PER) ranged from (0.19%) in D3 to (0.33%) in D5. The net protein utilization (NPU) values ranged from (14.08 ±0.06) in fish fed D3 to (9.73 ±0.03) in D5. The overall results indicated that 50% replacement of Fish Meal with Corn Gluten Meal in the diets of Clarias gariepinus juveniles gives optimal feed utilization without affecting fish growth.