EVALUATING THE USE OF CARAWAY SEEDS AS A NATURAL FEED ADDITIVE IN PRACTICAL DIET FOR NILE TILAPIA OREOCHROMIS NILOTICUS

Fayza E. Abbass¹, Amal S. Hassan¹ and Mohammad H. Ahmad²*

1- Department of fish production and aquaculture systems.

 2 – Department of fish nutrition, central laboratory for aquaculture research, Abbassa, Abo-Hammad, Sharqia, Egypt.

Received 16/ 5/ 2010 Accepted 13/ 6/ 2010

Abstract

The main objective of this study was determining the effect of different levels of caraway seeds meal Carum carvi (CSM), used as a feed additive compared on growth performance, feed utilization, and whole body composition of Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus. All experimental diets were iso-nitrogenous (30.31% crude protein) and iso-caloric (4.46 k cal/g diet). Five experimental diets were formulated to contain 0.0 (control), 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 % CSM. The study was conducted in triplicates where three100-L aquaria have been randomly allocated to each treatment. Each aquarium was stocked with 20 fish (3.6 ± 0.02g). Experimental diets were offered at a rate of 4 % of live body weight of fish. The diets offered twice daily for six days per week for 12 weeks for 12 weeks. Results showed that the optimum growth was obtained in diet contained 1.0 % CSM, whereas the control diet produced the lowest fish growth. There were no significant changes in fish survival among the different treatments and its range was 98.52 – 100 %. The optimum feed intake (FI), protein efficiency ratio (PER), apparent protein utilization (APU), and energy utilization (EU) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were obtained at diet containing 1.0% CSM. No significant differences were observed in dry matter, protein, lipid, or ash content in fish bodies when fed diets containing various levels of CSM. The reduction in CSM – treated feed cost compared with control diet to produce one kg fish gain of treatment containing 1.0 % CSM levels was 16.41%.

Keywords: Medicinal plants, caraway seeds, Nile tilapia, growth performance, feed utilization, whole body composition, economic evaluation.