COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF BLACK SOLDIER FLY Hermetia illucens LARVAE OIL ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE, DIGESTIBILITY, FATTY ACID COMPOSITION AND HAEMATOLOGICAL FOR NILE TILAPIA Oreochromis niloticus

Abu B. Noor-Hidayati*, Shaharudin A. Razak, Zazali Alias, Norhidayah M. Taufek, Hasniyati Muin, Ameenat A. Raji, and Firdaus Aspani
 
Institute of Biological Science
Faculty of Science
University of Malaya
50603 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
noorhidayati_yat@yahoo.com

Tilapia has been cultured worldwide and is increasing popularity among farmers including Malaysia. In order to maximize growth performance and feed efficiency, tilapia is facing new challenges involving well-balanced diets with variety of alternative aquafeed source. Increasing cost of fishmeal and fish oil not only affect aquaculture industry in Malaysia but also worldwide. One of the major nutrient which is lipid, have very important roles in fish nutrition and metabolism.Insect or larvae have a great potential to be fish feed and was indicated to have rich in fats.Black soldier fly larvae oil is a potential lipid source for aquafeed with high content of lauric acid (35.2%). The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of fish oil (FO) replacement with black soldier fly larvae oil (BSO) on growth performance, digestibility, fatty acid composition and haematological for tilapia.

Five experimental diets were formulated with FO and with partial or complete (25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% BSO, respectively) replacement of FO with BSO. Chromic oxide was used as inert digestibility marker. The fish were fed at 5% of their body weight per day for 90 days. At the end of the experiment, tilapia from each experimental diet were individually weighted after fasting for 24 h. 3ml of blood was collected from caudal peduncle. Muscles were dissected for fatty acid and proximate analysis. Feces and diets were analysed to determine chromium content for apparent digestibility. All data were analyzed using SPSS, performed with one-way ANOVA.

The results showed that FO can be successfully totally replaced with BSO in tilapia diets without affecting fish growth performance.The highest growth (2.27%) and the lowest FCR (1.39) were obtained in fish fed the BSO25 diet. Similar to this study, current research suggested that saturated fatty acids could be effectively utilized by tilapia. There was no palatability problem in this study. The values obtained for haematological parameters were within the normal ranges for tilapia.