A Review on Significance of Azolla Meal as a Protein Plant Source in Finfish Culture

The increase in costs and demand of protein from conventional resource necessitates fish farmers and hatcheries manager to incorporate cheap and locally available ingredients in fish diets. Among protein plant sources, Azolla seems to be good replacer of protein from expensive sources such as fish meal and fish oil depending on feeding habits of the fish species. It contains high crude protein content (13% to 30%) and essential amino acid (EAA) composition (rich in lysine) than most green forage crops and other aquatic macrophytes. A review was conducted on significance of Azolla meal as a protein plant source in finfish culture, mostly focus was on Tilapia species and family Cyprinidae. About 30 published online journal papers, from Research gate and Google scholar in aquaculture nutrition were reviewed. Among reviewed papers revealed that, the dietary Azolla supplementation at certain level have a positive effect on feed utilization and protein conversion ratio, mobilization and utilization of glycogenic amino acids, and growth performance. Therefore, this review suggests that, 10-45% Azolla inclusion level can be incorporated in the diet for Tilapia species, except for T. zillii which requires more than 40% protein contents. While in fish belong to the family Cyprinidae, the inclusion level should be 10-50% for Rohu, and 10-25% for the rest of family members, except Labeo fimbriatus which didn’t shows any effect up to 40% Azolla inclusion level in a diet.