摘要：Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector in the world and Tilapia is a major species contributing to the freshwater aquaculture production. Further expansion of aquaculture demands an adequate supply of efficient, nutritious and inexpensive fish feed because feed contributes significantly to the cost and efficiency of fish production. It is estimated that feed costs can account for up to 70% of the total operating cost in aquaculture. Fish nutritionists all over the world are trying to develop cost effective feeds without compromising on the efficacy towards claiming better production levels thus by increasing the profitability. It is a fact that waste generation is a major problem in the vegetable production and marketing sector. The volume of wastes generated and its resultant environmental impacts necessitate the need of utilizing these wastes effectively. Developing cost effective fish feeds from the vegetable wastes have great relevance at present. The current study aims at the utilization of vegetable wastes in the feeds for Nile tilapia, which is a popular species in freshwater aquaculture. The possibility of incorporating vegetable waste in the fish feed was tried through an indoor study in the species comparing the test diets against the fish meal based and clam meal based control feeds. The experimental diet was formulated keeping the overall protein content at 30%. Feeding was done @5% of the body weight per day. Proximate composition of vegetable waste, test diet and the carcass was recorded during the study. FCR, FCE, SGR and % survival were also recorded. Most important water quality parameters were checked on a daily basis and the other factors were analyzed fortnightly. There was significant reduction (P0.05level) in the weight and length attained by the fish fed with the test diet during the experimental period of 90 days. Organoletptic quality of the raw fish and boiled fish after the rearing period was assessed using Hedonic Scale Scoring method. The results of the study indicate that there is a possibility of incorporating vegetable wastes in the Tilapia-feed though it does not perform as good as the other expensive feeds with fish meal and clam meal. But while considering the cost factor, the inclusion of vegetable waste has real sense. More nutritional studies are warranted in this line especially using other herbivorous fishes like Indian Major Carps towards attaining concordant results.
关键词：Tilapia;growth;vegetable waste;nutrients;quality of flesh
