Sustainability of Aquaculture industry has been threatened by the high cost of fish feeds, which account for more than 60% of the total operational costs. Fish meal has been used widely as the main source of protein ingredient in the diets of farmed fishes and constitutes the bulk of the cost of fish feed. The recent projected dwindling production of fishmeal signals a progressive increase of fish feed going forward . Artemia biomass which is rich in protein and essential amino acids, and fatty acids could make a suitable replacer for fish meal as the main source of protein. This study compared performance of Nile tilapia fingerlings fed Artemia biomass-based diets prepared by partial and compl ete replacement of fishmeal (0% Artemia inclusion-AT0 , 50% inclusion-AT 50 and 100% inclusion-AT100) against an ideal Nile tilapia commercial pellet (COMM) . The results show that inclusion of Artemia biomass in tilapia feed resulted in much higher growth parameters as compared to the 0% artemia inclusion diet. The A100 diet foristance produced much higher specific growth rate (SGR) (1.47±0.02%) that was not significantly different from that recorded from fish offered the most favourable diet COMM (1.54±0.00%) . Further, fish offered the Artemia-based produced significantly higher survival (AT50=96.44±0.22% and AT100 =96.67±0.01%) than that recorded in fish offered the COMM diet (94.44±1.11%). The study concluded that Artemia biomass can completely replace fish meal in the diets of Nile tilapia without compromising the growth performance and feed utilization and recommended similar studies with carnivorous fish .
Keywords: Growth parameters, Nile tilapia, Artemia biomass, feed utilization, fishmeal replacement