The Comparative Effect of Fish and Blood Meal Based Diets on the Growth and Survival of Juvenile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in Concrete Tank

An experiment was carried out to find out the comparative effect of imported fish meal, blood meal and local fish waste based diets on the growth and survival of juvenile tilapia. (O. niloticus) in concrete tank. Four diets consisting of N.I.O.M.R. pelleted feed containing 40% CP, with imported fish meal, as the control and three others formulated with fresh, boiled cattle blood and local fish waste meal at 30% CP, were fed to juvenile tilapia with average initial weight of 55.24g in four treatments and four replicates in a completely randomized design. Result indicated final body weights of 100.83, 96.54, 98.4 and 86.82g and average body length of 18.47, 18.16, 18.4 and 18.14cm, for treatments 1 (control), 2 (fresh blood based diet), 3 (boiled blood based diet) and 4 (local fish waste meal based diet) respectively, with no significant difference between the treatments (P>0.05). The same was also true for average daily weight gain of 0.41, 0.36, 0.31 and 0.28g. However, treatment 1 and 2 had better relative weight gain 93.69 and 80.21%, than 3 and 4 at 62.37 and 64.85% respectively, (P<0.05). The survival was 100% in all treatments. Treatment 2 was more cost effective at N539.06/Kg fish, followed by 1 with N667.52. Treatments 3 and 4 had the highest at N698.20 and N718.60 per kg fish. The trial showed that tilapia feed processed with fresh cattle blood performed as well as imported fish meal, boiled blood and local fish waste and in addition was more cost effective.