Effect of Zingiber officinale and Allium sativum Powders as Natural Feed Additives Promoting Growth, Feed Utilization and Whole-Body Composition in Clarias gariepinus Fry

Abstract

Nutrition is the main factor determining the \npotential of farmed fish to exhibit their growth capacity as a function of the \nprotein content and certain additives contained in their diet. Thus, the \npresent study was conducted to assess dietary supplementation effects of ginger \nand garlic as feed additives on growth, feed utilization and whole-body composition in Clarias gariepinus fry. Following a 24 h fasting, 525 fry weighing 1.2 ± 0.01 g were randomly divided in triplicate into five \ntreatments of 105 fish each and fed for 56 days. In treatment T0, fry was fed with control basal diet, in treatments T1 and \nT2, fry was fed with basal diet containing 1% and 2% ginger, \nwhile in treatments T3 and T4, fry was fed on basal diet \nsupplemented with 1% and 2% garlic. Fish were fed at the rate of 10% of their \nbody weight and every 14 days, intermediate fish sampling was done during which \nfry per treatment was counted, measurements taken on a representative \nsample and the feeding rate adjusted. Main water parameters were recorded daily \nbefore feeding. After the feeding trial, fish fed 1% (T3) garlic had the best \ngrowth performance in term of final weight (33.01 ± 2.99 g), weight gain (WG) (31.81 ± 0.99 g), specific growth rate (SGR) (5.86 ± 0.16%/d) and \nfeed conversion ratio (FCR) (1.25 ± 0.11) which was significantly different \nfrom other treatments, particularly T0 which had the lowest growth performances \n(final weight (17.02 ± 0.27 g), WG (15.81 ± 0.28 g), SGR (4.73 ± 0.03%/d) and FCR (2.03 ± 0.01)). Similar trend to growth parameters was found \nwith whole-body composition (moisture, crude protein, crude lipid, ash, and \nenergy) and nutrient retention. In conclusion, C. gariepinus fry fed 1% dietary inclusion level of garlic has had better growth, feed utilization and body composition, which has been more \nattributed to its physiological and pharmacological properties than its \nnutritional effects.