THE IMPACT OF OPTIMAX® ON THE GROWTH, FEED EFFICIENCY, AND BODY CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF NILE TILAPIA (OREOCHROMIS NILOTICUS, L., 1758) FINGERLINGS
Zenhom, O.A.1; A. Ayyat1 and H.G.M. El-Sayed2
1 Central Laboratory for Aquaculture Research, Abbasa, Abo-Hammad, Egypt
2 Regional Center for Food and Feed, Agric. Res. Cen., Cairo, Egypt.
| Received 14 /11 /2021 |
Accepted 21 /12 /2021 |
ABSTRACT
This experiment was carried out to evaluate the effects of the graded levels of Optimax® (0, 0.5, 1, and 1.5 g/kg diet) on Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) regarding their growth performance, feed utilization, and chemical composition of their whole bodies for 90 days. Fish with an average initial body weight of 9.56 ± 1.57 g were distributed into four treatments (three replicates per treatment). The obtained results revealed that fish fed with 0.5 g of Optimax®/kg diet showed the highest growth parameters, along with improved feed conversion ratio and protein content in their bodies compared to other levels. Therefore, it could be concluded that the level of 0.5 g/kg diet of Optimax® is useful for enhancing the production performance of O. niloticus.
Keywords:
Nile tilapia – Organic acids – Growth performance – Feed utilization – Carcass composition
