Effect of feeding with different levels of trisodium citrate on growth performance, immunocompetence triats, and digestive enzymes in goldfish (Carassius auratus)

A 56-day feeding trial was conducted to find the potential effects of trisodium citrate (TSC) on the growth performance, immue response, and digestive enzymes of goldfish. The fish (n=150; 2.51±0.11 g) were randomly distributed into five groups with triplicates and fed with a basal diet without TSC (control diet) and four levels of TSC (5, 10, 15, and 20 g kg^-1) for eight weeks. Results showed that TSC supplemented diets markedly enhanced the final weight, specific growth rate, feed conversion ratio, and feed intake (p 0.05). Moreover, serum immune parameters such as total immunoglobulin, lysozyme, and complements (C3 and C4) were significantly increased with the supplementation of dietary TSC (p 0.05). Furthermore, protease, lipase, and amylase values were profoundly increased with the increments of dietary TSC compared to the control group (p 0.05) and they were almost doubled in the fish fed with TSC at 20 g kg^-1 TSC compared to the control. Taken together, the optimum dosage of TSC supplementation was 20 g kg^-1 in terms of growth efficiency, immune parameters, and digestive enzymes for juvenile goldfish.