Nutritional and anti-nutritional contents of alternative plant feed ingredients for fish feed formulation

The present study evaluates the importance of plant materials as alternative feed ingredients for fish feed preparation. Commonly available plant materials i.e., sweet potato leaf meal, banana leaf meal, soybean leaf meal, salvinia leaf meal, papaw leaf meal, gliricidia leaf meal, habarala leaf meal and jack seed powder were subjected to proximate analysis and mineral analysis. Anti-nutrients such as saponin, phytic acid, cyanide and tannin were also analyzed. The crude protein content of the ingredients was ranged from 9.66 to 29.32 g/ 100 g and the crude lipid contents were recorded as 0.8 to 11.6 g/100 g. Crude fiber contents were between 2.2 and 53.05 g/100 g and ash contents ranged from 5.21 to 19.24 g/100 g. The ingredients had trace amounts of Na, K and P which ranged between 0.49 to 2.71 g/100 g. All the tested ingredients contained saponin (0.79 to 5.58 g/100 g), phytic acid (0.07 to 0.81 g/100 g), cyanide (10.82 to 24.17 mg/100 g) and tannin (2.19 to 9.04 g/100 g). The present study revealed that above ingredients contained nutrients in appreciable amounts and anti- nutrients in low levels and could be used for fish feed preparation. Further studies are needed to find the effect of those ingredients on fish growth.