Aquaculture Africa 2023

November 13 - 16, 2023

Lusaka, Zambia

EFFECTS OF SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE POSTBIOTIC ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND FEED UTILIZATION OF NILE TILAPIA FINGERLINGS

Merceline Ndinda1* ,  Joyce Gichiku Maina2 , Davis Njuguna Karanja1 ,  Philip Njeru Nyaga1 , 3 Mavindu Muthoka , Chadag Vishnumurthy Mohan4 , Tavornpanich Saraya4

 

1Department of Veterinary Pathology, Microbiology and Parasitology, University of Nairobi, P.O Box 29053-00625, Nairobi, Kenya

*merceline.ndinda@gmail.com

 



Aquaculture significantly contributes to global food and nutrition security while also serving as a critical source of employment and income for millions of people worldwide. Despite its significant contributions, aquaculture faces persistent challenges such as disease management and the optimization of growth.  One promising solution to address these issues is the utilization of postbiotics, which offer an eco-friendly alternative to antibiotics.  This study aimed to evaluate the effect of dietary postbiotics on growth performance and nutrie nt utilization of Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus fingerlings.

 A feeding trial of 55 days was conducted in which Monosex tilapia fingerlings (6.79 ± 0.11 g) were obtained and acclimatized for two weeks. They were then randomly assigned to aerated 12 aquariums at a density of 25 fish per aquarium. The aquariums were then categorized into 4 groups, each in triplicate and fed on a diet supplemented with different levels of postbiotics. The four levels of postbiotic inclusion were 0g (control), 2g, 4g and 6g postbiotic/Kg of feed. The baseline diet for all treatments was formulated to contain 30 % crude protein and 3000 Kcal of DE per kilogram and feeding was done three times a day at 3% body weight. Sampling was conducted every 10 days to assess parameters of growth and feed utilization indicators .

 Treatment  2 (4g postbiotic) exhibited the most remarkable performance in terms of final mean weight (FMW) , mean weight gain (MWG) , specific growth rate (SGR) , feed conversion ratio (FCR) , and protein efficiency ratio (PER) , followed by T3 (6g postbiotic) and T1 (2g postbiotic), while the Control (0g postbiotic) had significantly lower performance. T he Control group exhibited significantly lower survival compared to T1, T2, and T3. These results demonstrated that yeast-based postbiotic supplementation of up to 4g kg-1 can be effectively recommended as an important growth promoter for tilapia culture.

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