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Digestibility and postprandial ammonia excretion in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) fed diets containing different oilseed by-products

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Abstract

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the potential for using oilseed by-products (soybean, copra and palm kernel meals) as partial replacements of fishmeal in feeds for Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Nutrient digestibility and postprandial ammonia excretion rates were examined. A fishmeal-based diet served as control against three test diets in which 30 % of each of the oilseed by-products was included. Diets were randomly assigned to triplicate groups of fish (~1 kg bulk weight) for the digestibility trials which spanned a total of 9 days. The partial inclusion of oilseed meals did not significantly affect apparent protein digestibility, although lipid, ash and dry matter digestibilities were significantly affected (p < 0.05). Fish fed the soybean meal diets significantly reduced their feed intake and showed lower growth and feed utilization efficiencies over the trial period. The inclusions of the plant proteins caused a reduction in ammonia excretion rates with the palm kernel meal diet recording the lowest mean excretion rates of 117 mg kg−1 day−1 which was twofold lower than the highest mean daily ammonia excretion rate of the fish group fed the fishmeal-based control diets. Overall, the study confirmed the potential of using copra and palm kernel meals to partially replace fishmeal in Nile tilapia diets based on their effects on short-term growth and feed utilization, nutrient digestibilities and lower ammonia excretion rates, while soybean meal in an unrefined form is not a promising replacement for fishmeal in tilapia diets.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the technical and laboratory staff of the Section for Aquaculture, DTU Aqua, Hirtshals, Denmark, for their assistance with the experimentation and laboratory analyses. The present study is part of KAO’s PhD which was supported by a Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Agriculture and Renewable Natural Resources, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    Kwasi Adu Obirikorang, Stephen Amisah & Simon Cudjoe Fialor

  2. DTU Aqua, Section for Aquaculture, The North Sea Research Centre, Technical University of Denmark, PO Box 101, 9850, Hirtshals, Denmark

    Peter Vilhelm Skov

Authors
  1. Kwasi Adu Obirikorang
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  2. Stephen Amisah
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  3. Simon Cudjoe Fialor
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  4. Peter Vilhelm Skov
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Correspondence to Kwasi Adu Obirikorang.

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Obirikorang, K.A., Amisah, S., Fialor, S.C. et al. Digestibility and postprandial ammonia excretion in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) fed diets containing different oilseed by-products. Aquacult Int 23, 1249–1260 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-015-9881-z

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