Vol. 7, Issue 3 (2018)

Author(s):
Anayitullah Chesti and Rikhi S Chauhan

Abstract:
An eight months growth study was carried out to investigate the supplemental effects of dietary garlic (Allium sativum) powder on growth, feed utilization and whole body composition of fingerlings of amur carp (Cyprinus carpio haematopterus). Fingerlings with an average weight of 16.11± 0.86g were distributed into four treatment groups T₁, T₂, T₃and T₄ (25 fishes randomly distributed in each of 12 tanks. The water quality parameters viz. water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, free carbon dioxide and total alkalinity were regularly monitored. Experimental diets were prepared by mixing rice bran, deoiled mustard cake, deoiled soybean cake and vitamin-mineral mixture. The garlic powder (GP) was incorporated in to diets at the rate of 0.5% (GP 0.5), 1.0% (GP1.0) and 1.5% (GP1.5). GP was not added to the control diet (GP0). The experimental feed diets were isoproteinous and contained 28.0% protein and 7.5% lipid on dry matter basis. The experimental fishes were fed @ 5% of their body weight daily. After the feeding trial, weight gain (WG) of fish fed with GP0.5, GP1.0 and GP1.5 was significantly higher (p<0.05) than those of fish fed with GP 0. Net weight gain (NWG) and specific growth rate (SGR) showed a similar trend as weight gain (WG). Protein efficiency ratio of fish fed with GP0.5, GP1.0 and GP1.5 was also significantly higher (p<0.05) than those of fish fed with the control diet. The values of feed conversion ratio (FCR) and gross conversion efficiency (GCE) did not differ significantly (P>0.05) amongst different treatment groups. The obtained results indicated that T₄ (GP1.5) was the best treatment which realized significant increase in parameters related to growth performance.