FERMENTED PLANT JUICE KANGKONG Ipomea aquatica ENHANCES GROWTH PERFORMANCE, FEED EFFICIENCY AND SURVIVAL OF NILE TILAPIA Oreochromis niloticus FINGERLINGS

There was a decline of fish capture. Intensification in aquaculture was a need to suffice fish consumption that causes aquaculture diseases. Treating aquaculture diseases means more chemicals, antibiotics and unapproved drugs, which is detrimental to ecosystem and human as final consumer. Intensification also increases cost of production, due to high feed cost of inefficient commercial feeds and the environment suffers. There were needs to address these issues in aquaculture. Fermented plant juice (FPJ) is now a trend in organic farming and was categorized under effective microorganism (EM) for bioremediation, bioaugmentation and probiotics. A study evaluated the growth performance, feed efficiency and survival of Oreochromis niloticus fed diets with fermented plant juice (FPJ) Kangkong Ipomoea aquatica. The treatments were Commercial Diet (C), 250 ml FPJ Kangkong in 1 Kg Commercial Feed (C+250FPJ Kangkong) and 500 ml FPJ Kangkong in 1 Kg Commercial Feed (C+500FPJ Kangkong), in triplicates. The fishes were fed 5% of the body weight within 60 days of culture (DOC), given 2x a day.

The treatment with the highest growth performance, feed efficiency and survival was the 250 ml FPJ kangkong, followed by 500 ml FPJ kangkong and the control diet (Commercial Feed (C)). Weight Gain (WG), Average Growth Rate (AGR), Relative Growth (RG), Relative Growth Rate (RGR)  of tilapia fed diets with FPJ were all significantly higher (P=0.004) than C. The Percent Specific Growth Rate (%SGR) was also higher in FPJ fed tilapia than C

The feed efficiency of tilapia fed diets with FPJ was higher than C. The Feed Efficiency Ratio (FER) was better in FPJ fed fish than C (P=0.001). The Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) was significantly lower in FPJ fed tilapia than C (P<0.001). The Growth Conversion Ratio (GCR) was significantly higher in tilapia fed diets with FPJ than C (P<0.001).

The 500 ml FPJ kangkong got the lowest survival compared to the commercial diet and 250 ml FPJ kangkong. The inclusion 250 ml FPJ Kangkong in 1 kg commercial feeds improves growth performance, feed efficiency and survival of Nile tilapia.