EFFECT OF PARTIAL OR COMPLETE REPLACEMENT OF SOYBEAN MEAL WITH LEAF PROTEIN CONCENTRATE MEAL IN NILE TILAPIA DIETS ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND BLOOD CONSTITUENTS

Abstract

The current trial was conducted to study the effects of partial replacement of soybean meal (SBM) with leaf protein concentrate mixture (LPCM) from carrot and sugar beet leaves in Nile tilapia diets on growth performance, body composition and blood biochemical parameters. Three diets were formulated by replacing 0, 50 and 100% of protein from SBM with LPCM (control, LPCM50, and LPCM100, respectively). Each diet was fed to three replicate groups of fish (initial body weight: 5.03 ± 0.01 g) for 12 weeks. Results showed that dietary LPCM substitution significantly decreased final weight, weight gain, specific growth rate, and feed intake of juvenile tilapia. No significant differences in feed conversion ratio and survival rate were observed among the experimental groups. Condition factor significantly increased in fish groups LPCM50 and LPCM100 compared with those in control. Fish fed LPCM50 and LPCM100 diets had lower crude lipid content than the control group. Regarding all blood biochemical and hematological parameters, no significant differences were observed among all groups. However, the relative margin was increased by 12.83% in LPCM100 group, while decreased by 5.88% in fish group LPCM50 compared with the control one. These findings demonstrated that partial or complete replacement of SBM protein with LPCM has impaired growth performance of O. niloticus, without any negative effect on blood constituents. In addition, the relative margin was increased significantly in O. niloticus fed LPCM100 diet.