PERFORMANCE AND NUTRIENT UTILIZATION OF BRACKISH WATER CATFISH (CHRYSICTHYS WALKERI) FED GRADED DIETARY PROTEIN AND CALORIE LEVELS INDOOR IN PLASTIC TANKS

Abstract

A 70 – day growth trial was conducted on the brackish water catfish Chrysicthys walkeri (mean weight 0.68 ± 0.026g) in a 3x3 factorial experiment. The protein levels were 36%, 39% and 42% while the calorie levels were 2,800, 3000 and 3200 Kcal Metabolization energy/kg diet making up 9 diets fed to the fish to satiation. At the end of the trail, fish on diet with 3000 kcal ME/kg were best of the nine diets in performance with diet 5 (39% crude protein and 3000Kcal Me/kg) performing significantly better (P<0.05) in mean with 3000 Kcal ME/ka were best of the nine diets in performance with diet weight gain (1.32 g), feed conversion ratio (FCR) (3.79) and specific growth rate (SGR) (1.07% /day). Likewise, nutrient utilization parameters like protein efficiency ratio (PER) and apparent net protein utilization (App-NPU) measured showed similar trend but the highest PER and App-NPU values of 0.69 and 17.89 respectively in diet PC2 (36% crude protein and 3000 Kcal ME) were not significantly better (P>0.05) than 0.68 and 17.60 PER and App-NPU respectively.