NUTRITIVE POTENTIALS OF PARKIA BIGLOBOSA PULP MEAL IN PARTIAL REPLACEMENT FOR MAIZE IN THE DIETS OF AFRICAN CATFISH (CLARIAS GARIEPINUS) JUVENILES

This study was conducted to evaluate Parkia Pulp meal (PP) as a replacement for maize in the diets of Clarias gariepinus. Triplicate groups of fish were fed six diets where PP replaced maize at graded levels of 0 (control), 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100% at random for 70 days. Mean weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), protein efficiency ratio (PER) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were all statistically the same for diets 1 to 3 while fish fed diets 6 had the least WG, SGR, PER and inferior FCR of 349.75g, 0.55g/day, 2.34 and 2.13 respectively. Substitution of PP for maize appear to be responsible for the significant difference (p<0.05) in the utilization efficiency of PP based-diets at inclusions above 40% probably due to variations in their nutrients compositions. Economic evaluation of fish produced further showed that utilization of dietary PP at 40% is capable of reducing production cost by 24.37% with good fish performance. The general high feed intake with 100% fish survival rates suggest that PP contains nutrients capable of supporting fish good growth and performance. Sustainable fish production could be achieved with dietary PP at 40% inclusion in fish diet.