National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI), Aquaculture Research and Development Center (ARDC), P O. Box 530, Kampala, Uganda; Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland), Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR) Gruental, CH-8820 Waedenswil, Switzerland
Aanyu, M., National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI), Aquaculture Research and Development Center (ARDC), P O. Box 530, Kampala, Uganda; Carpaij, C., Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland), Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR) Gruental, CH-8820 Waedenswil, Switzerland; Widmer, M., Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland), Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR) Gruental, CH-8820 Waedenswil, Switzerland
The effect of diets with graded levels of cotton (CC) and sunflower (SF) seed cakes on the growth and feed utilization of Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus was determined. The fish were grown for a period of 90 days in 15 "happas" representing 5 treatments namely; SF25CC10 - 10% C and 25% S; SF20CC15 - 15% C and 20% S; SF15CC20 - 20% C and 15% S; SF10CC25 -25% C and 10% S and CTL was a commercial feed used as the control. Each treatment was replicated three times. The "happas" were 1m3 with a mesh size of 1mm. They were placed in a 1,450M2 pond with an average depth of 1 meter. The control diet had a significantly higher final weight, daily weight gain (DWG), condition factor, and the most efficient food conversion ratio (FCR) and protein utilization efficiency (PER) than the test diets. Among the test diets, SF15CC20 had the highest absolute values for final weight, DWG, FCR and PER indicating that inclusion of up to 15% of sunflower and 20% of cotton seed cakes alongside the ingredients used in this study could be used for pond production of Nile tilapia.