1ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Brackishwater Fish Farm, Kakinada Regional Centre, Kakinada-533 007, Andhra Pradesh, India
2ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai-400 061, Maharashtra, India
3ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Visakhapatnam-530 003, Andhra Pradesh, India
4ICAR-National Research Centre on Meat, Hyderabad-500 092, Telangana, India
*Corresponding Author: Muralidhar P. Ande, ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Brackishwater Fish Farm, Kakinada Regional Centre, Kakinada-533 007, Andhra Pradesh, India, Email: murali@cife.edu.in
Online Published on 09 May, 2022.
Stunting is a process of suppressing growth from unfavourable conditions. The protein supplementation during stunting gives scope to maintain the nutrient reserves of fish and its quality.
A feeding trial was conducted for eight months to study the effect of three hetero-nitrogenous diets with 25% (control), 30% (T1) and 35% (T2) crude protein (CP) levels on growth and physio-metabolic responses of Chanos chanos fingerlings during stunting. Milk fish fingerlings with a mean body weight of 11.71±0.18 g were stocked in earthen ponds @ 20 no/m2 in each replicate (n=3) was fed @ 2% biomass throughout the experiment.
Fish fed with T1 diet showed better specific growth rate (0.64±0.01% d−1), weight gain percentage (362.56±14.95) and protease activity (7.53±0.25 U/mg protein). Whereas, lower activity was observed for the enzyme assay, namely superoxide dismutase (45.41±2.50 U/min/mg protein), aspartate aminotransferase (34.01±1.88 U/min/mg protein) and alanine aminotransferase (39.64±0.64 U/min/mg protein). Hence, it may be concluded that the dietary protein inclusion level of 30% CP showed better growth performance and lower physio-metabolic response in milkfish fingerlings during the stunting.
Chanos chanos, Dietary protein, Growth, Physio-metabolic responses, Stunting
