EFFECT OF Moringa oleifera LEAF MEAL ON REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE (HATCHABILITY, FECUNDITY, SPERM MOTILITY) AND SURVIVAL RATEOF AFRICAN CATFISH
Moringa oleifera commonly known as "The Miracle Tree, has an impressive range of medicinal uses and contained beneficial major and trace elements essential for body maintainance, However, the plant has low level of anti-nutrients such as saponins, phenol and tannins. Therefore this study investigated the effect of Moringa oleifera leaf meal on reproductive performance (fecundity, hatchability and sperm motility) of African catfish. 72 adult African catfish (2.5kg+/- 0.2) were separated into four groups/ treatments at ratio of 4 male to 2 female per tank and replicated thrice. The fish were fed with diets containing four different inclusion levels of Moringa oleifera 0, 5, 10 and 15% for seven weeks, after which the hypophyzation was carried out and the eggs were incubated and hatched in flow through systems and temperature were kept within 21-25oC..
After 7weeks of experiment, an inverse relationship were observed between the weight change of the fish and Moringa levels in the diets while number of eggs released and fries have direct relationship with Moringa inclusion level. The fishes were defatted and the weight has drastically reduced significantly (p<0.05) particularly groups 2, 3 and 4 (1.19:1.0kg: 1.02:1.02kg: and 1.0: 1.0kg), the numbers of eggs (84,480; 87,360; 102,722 and 115, 200) and fries (11,362; 13,358; 16,758 and17,8530 ) released by the treatments1,2,3and 4 respectively increased significantly (p<0.05) as the level of Moringa in the diets increased. The milts were observed under the microscope for the sperm count, % motility and %non-motile; % life and % death, progressive, for treatments 1, 2 and 3 were [( 12; 62.99%;37.0%1;51.13%;48.87% B) (13;63.01%;36.99%; 54.17%; 45.83%, B-Good,forward, directional movement) (10.5;51.61%;48.39%;43.10%;56.90% C -Fair,,forward, directional movement) ] respectively. The sperm for treatment 4 was not clearly shown. This observation showed that Moringa oleifera had negative impact on the sperm
but affect eggs of the fish positively. In conclusion, Moringa oleifera enhanced higher fecundity and hatchability in female African cat fish.
Key words: hatchability, fecundity, moringa, inclusion level, milt, anti -nutrients