Effect of different plant protein sources on growth performance and muscle nutrition in Monopterus albus

A 2-month feeding experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different plant protein sources on growth performance in rice field eel,Monopterus albus.Soybean meal,rapeseed meal,cottonseed meal and white fish meal,fermented soybean meal were used as the main protein source.Three diets with 46% total protein from different plant resources were formulated to fed the fish with an average weight of 12.56±1.17 g.The results showed that eel had the best performance in weight gain,specific growth rate,protein efficiency ratio and feed conversion ratio in the cottonseed meal group(CMP).In the soybean meal group(SMP),the crude protein content of eel muscle was significantly higher than the CMP group and rapeseed meal group(RMP).In the RMP group,the crude fat content of eel muscle was significantly higher than the other two groups.There were no significant differences of viscerasomatic index,hepatosomatic index,condition factor among different treatments.