A six-week experiment was carried out to test the effects of total (100%) and partial (50%) replacement of fish meal in the diet of African catfish growers with black soldier fly (B) meal, yellow mealworm (M) meal, and a 1:1 combination of both (BM) on the production and health of fish. A total of 420 fish with an average initial body weight of 200 ± 0.5 g were randomly distributed in triplicate to seven diet groups (C, B50, B100, M50, M100, BM50, and BM100, respectively). The growth performance and feed utilization of fish fed with partial or total replacement levels of FM with B were not significantly affected (p > 0.05) during the 6 weeks of feeding. In contrast, significant differences were observed between the groups fed with a diet where FM was totally replaced with M meal and the control in terms of final body weight, specific growth rate, feed conversion ratio, protein efficiency ratio, and protein productive value. Among the blood plasma biochemistry parameters, total cholesterol exhibited a significant difference (p = 0.007) between the M treatments and the control diet. The fatty acid profile of the liver was changed with respect to the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid content in all experimental groups. Parallel with this, the upregulation of elovl5 and fas genes in liver was found in all experimental groups compared to the control. Overall, this study shows that fish meal cannot be substituted with yellow mealworm meal in the practical diet of African catfish without compromising the growth, health and feed utilization parameters.
Water quality is made up of physical, chemical and biological factors which influence the use of water for fish culture purposes. The objective of this study was to analyze physicochemical properties of water in Denbi reservoir. Field and laboratory work were conducted to generate the data. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA test. The result of the study showed that the mean and standard deviation of physicochemical parameter of water obtained were as follows: Temperature (25.14±1.12 o C),pH (8.25±0.31), Conductivity (48.94±1.55µS/cm), TDS (24.16±0.49 mg/L), Turbidity (24.54±3.02 NTU), transparency (33.90±5.18cm), Total hardness (0.27±0.03 mg/L), Calcium hardness (1.57±0.30 mg/L), Iron (0.005±0.003mg/L), Manganese (0 mg/L), Nitrates (0.07±0.03 mg/litter) and Sulphate (0.15±0.01mg/L), respectively. The Physic-chemical properties of water in Denbi reservoir indicated that it is fit for fish production except total hardness and calcium hardness which were below the standards.
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