DIETARY CRICKET MEAL: EFFECT ON THE GROWTH AND REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF AFRICAN CATFISH.

The high demand of fishmeal (FM) as aquafeed in aquaculture industry has become a limiting factor for African catfish farming in Malaysia. Cricket meal (CM) is one of many insect meals that have been studied as fishmeal replacement for African catfish. However, there have been no controlled studies, which compare differences in crude protein level of cricket meal in African catfish broodstock diet. It is well established that reproductive performance and egg quality of fish broodstock are influenced by dietary nutrient intake. Protein could affect rate of spawning, quantity and quality of eggs as well as gametogenesis in the female fish. This research examined the growth and reproductive performance of African catfish fed with varying levels of crude protein (CP) at 35% and 40% from cricket meal compared to 35% CP from fishmeal as control in duplicate treatments of 10 fish per replicate. The feeding trial was conducted over a period of 56 days before the fish being induced through hormonal treatment by using Ovaprim for reproductive performance.

We observed that cricket meal-fed fish showed higher body weight gain (BWG), specific growth rate (SGR) and food conversion ratio (FCR), but lower protein efficiency ratio (PER) than fishmeal-fed fish. In term of reproductive performance, our studies also reported higher gonadosomatic index (GSI), fecundity rate and fertilization rate in fish fed with cricket meal. However, lower hatching rate were observed in groups fed with cricket meal compared to the control group. No mortality was recorded during the experimental period. As no significant differences were found in between fish fed with 35% and 40% CP of cricket meal, we concluded that cricket meal with 35% crude protein level is sufficient to replace fishmeal with comparable performance on the growth and reproduction of the catfish.