Aquaculture is currently playing, and will continue to play, a big part in boosting global fish production and in meeting the rising demand of fishery products. Capture fisheries production has levelled off and is no longer considered capable of sustaining the supply of fisheries products needed to meet the growing global demand. Tilapia is the common name for several species of cichlid fish inhabiting freshwater streams, ponds, rivers and lakes and less commonly in brackish water. Considered as an invasive species, tilapias are now of increasing importance in Aquaculture. Tilapia is the second most farmed fish world-wide and its production has quadrupled over the past decade because of its suitability for aquaculture, marketability and stable market prices. Native to Africa and Middle East, tilapias were introduced into over 90 countries for aquaculture and fisheries. Tilapia continued its rapid increase in global production. Recent production figures reported by various sources, our global production estimate for 2015 is 5,576,800 mt.  Tilapias are now one of the most widely introduced fish globally that has clearly emerged as a very promising group in aquaculture.

A 60 days indoor growth trial was conducted to study the effect of dietary supplementation of biofloc meal on growth and survival of juvenile GIFT tilapia. Four isonitrogenous and isoenergetic experimental diets (32% crude protein) were prepared using biofloc meal at different inclusion levels viz., 0 (T0), 20 (T1), 30 (T2) and 40% (T3). A commercial diet (T4) was used for comparison. The feeding trial was conducted in 15 nos. of 40 l plastic troughs in triplicate, utilising GIFT tilapias weighing an average of 2 g. During the experimental period, water quality parameters were measured and recorded daily. The mean value of water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, salinity, ammonia-N, nitrite-N, nitrate-N, hardness and alkalinity recorded in the experimental systems were 28.5°C, 8.1, 5.5 ppm, 4.5 ppt, 0.03 ppm, 0.07 ppm, 11 ppm, 630 ppm and 162.5 ppm respectively. Among the biofloc meal enriched diets, diet T1 with 20% biofloc yielded the best results in terms of average body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), specific growth rate (SGR), protein efficiency ratio (PER) and feed efficiency ratio (FER). The mean body weight gain recorded in T1 was 25.28±0.81 g. The results demonstrated that biofloc meal is a potential ingredient that can be incorporated in GIFT tilapia diet at 20% level for better growth performance.

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