Dietary Effect of some Oil Seed-Based Methionine on sperm Quality of African Catfish <i>Clarias Gariepinus</i> (Burchell, 1822)

Abstract

The effect of dietary oil seed methionine on the milt quality of Clarias gariepinus broodstock was investigated. 180 broodstock were randomly distributed into 15 tanks at 12 fish per tank. Each dietary treatment was in triplicates. Five iso-nitrogenous diets of 40 % crude protein were formulated and prepared. The five diets had 3.5g calculated methionine in 100g protein. The two oil seeds used were soybean and groundnut. Diet 1 had only fish meal and was designated as FM, diet 2 designated as FM+SB contained fish meal and soybean meal, diet 3 contained fish meal and groundnut cake and was designated as FM+GC, diet 4 had fish meal, soybean meal and groundnut cake meals in varying quantities and was designated as FM+SB+GC (V) while diet 5 had fish meal, soybean meal and groundnut cake in equal quantity and was designated as FM+SB+GC (E). The feeding trial lasted for 90 days. Fish weight, weight of testis, sperm count, % motility, milt volume and motility duration were evaluated at the end of the experiment. There were no significant differences (p<0.05) in the weight of fish. There were significant differences (p<0.05) in the sperm count, % motility, milt volume and motility duration. Fish fed FM had the lowest values in sperm count, % motility and motility duration. Fish fed FM+SB+GC (V) had the highest values for weight of testis, % motility, and milt volume. Fish fed FM+SB+GC (V) also had the second highest values for sperm count and motility duration. Fish fed FM+SB+GC (E) had the longest duration of motility for 35 seconds. There was significant difference (p<0.05) observed in sperm counts between fishes fed with FM+SB+GC (E) and other treatments. This results suggests that fish fed diets containing a combination of fish meal, soybean meal and groundnut meal in varying quantities increase sperm quality.

Key words: C. gariepinus, Oil seeds, Methionine, Broodstock, Sperm quality