Effects of dietary Macsumsuk® supplementation on growth performance, haematological parameters, disease resistance and body composition of juvenile Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus L.

Abstract

An eight-week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary Macsumsuk® supplementation on growth performance, haematological parameters, disease resistance and body composition of juvenile Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus. A total of 375 fish averaging 1.0 ± 0.05 g (mean ± SD) were randomly distributed into 15 tanks in groups of 25, and each tank was then randomly assigned to one of three replicates of five diets containing 0(M0), 0.3(M0.3), 0.6(M0.6), 1.2(M1.2) and 2.4(M2.4)% dietary Macsumsuk®. At the end of eight weeks of feeding trial, average weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), feed efficiency (FE) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) of fish fed M1.2 diet were significantly higher than those fed M0 diet (P < 0.05). Significantly higher values for haematological parameters, such as red blood cell (RBC), haemoglobin (Hb) and haematocrit (HCT), were obtained in fish fed M0.6 diet compared to the fish offered M2.4 diet. Although an analysis of variance (ANOVA) test suggested that the optimum level of dietary Macsumsuk® in juvenile Nile tilapia, O. niloticus, could be 1.2%, broken-line analysis of WG indicated a level of 0.803% when Macsumsuk® is used as the dietary feed additive.