Author(s): Uchechukwu Enyidi, Juhani Pirhonen, Jouni Vielma

Abstract: Low fingerling production exacerbated by poor nutrition and costly live feed are major setbacks in African catfish Clarias gariepinus culture. Larval C. gariepinus catfish requires live feed at onset of exogenous feeding after which dry diets can be administered. Dry diets must be nutritious, acceptable and growth supporting. Soybean (Glycine max) is the major plant protein component of catfish feed but is costly. There is need for alternative plant proteins. We substituted soybean meal (SBM) with bambaranut (Voandzeia subterranea) meal (BNM) in novel diets for larval African catfish, average weight 0.15±0.02 g. The SBM: BNM inclusion levels (%) were, Feed 1(F1), 25:5; feed 2 (F2), 20:10; feed 3 (F3), 15:15; feed 4 (F4), 10:20 and feed 5 (F5), 5:25; the remaining 70% consisted of fish meal (60%); wheat flour (8%) and vitamin mix (2%). Effects of the diets on larvae were evaluated using linear regression analysis. Specific growth rate (SGR) increased significantly while food conversion ratio (FCR) decreased with increasing inclusion of SBM. Survival (c. 30-45% depending on the treatment) of the larval catfish was not attributable to substitution levels. Protein efficiency ratio (PER) and protein retention (PR) increased with increasing inclusion of SBM. Result indicates that BNM can be used to substitute SBM albeit with narrow trade growth tradeoff in terms of FCR; SGR, PER and PR. Equal inclusion of BNM and SBM is beneficial in terms of growth than lower SBM. The catfish grew fast with relatively high mortality.

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