Evaluation of sweet potato (<i>Manihot esculenta</i>) peel meal diet on growth performance of catfish (<i>Clarias gariepinus</i>, Burchell, 1822)

Abstract

This study evaluated the growth performance of Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) fed varying levels of sweet potato peel meals for 90 days, April - June 2019. Diets were formulated at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% levels of sweet potato peels meal inclusion represented as B₁, B₂, B₃, B₄, and B₅ (B1= Control Group). 200 healthy fingerlings were used for the study. There were variations in the nutritional composition of the diets formulated with sweet potato peels used for the study. There were little variations in initial weights of C. gariepinus in the treatments, which did not show any significant difference (P<0.05) in size. Diet B1 (0%) gave the highest final weight (76.31g) and body weight gain (62.11g), which did not differ significantly (P<0.05) from B₂ (25%) (68.40g) and (54.87g) respectively. The specific growth rate was highest in diet B₁ (0%) and can be compared with diet B₂ (25%) although this differs significantly (P>0.05) with other treatments. The feed conversion ratio was also highest in B1 (0%) and compare favourably with B₂ (25%), which differ significantly (P>0.05) from other treatments. The protein efficiency ratio was highest in B₅ (100%) and lowest in B1 (0%), which decreased with an increased level of sweet potato peels meal inclusion. There was a high survival rate of fish in the treatments with B₁ (0%) as highest and B₅ (100%) as lowest, which differ significantly (P>0.05). It is recommended that 25% inclusion of sweet potato peels meal should be used for profitable fish production at present.