Dietary Decorticated Bambara Groundnut (Vigna Subterranea) effect on the Growth Responses of Clariid Catfish (Heterobranchus Bidorsalis) Fingerlings

An experiment was designed and carried out to assess the growth responses of Heterobranchus bidorsalis fingerlings fed graded levels of toasted Vigna subterranean based diets with the aim of establishing the best inclusion level of Bambara groundnut seed meal. Ground decorticated toasted bambara groundnut (BG) was incorporated as a nonconventional feedstuff at 0% (T1); 10% (T2); 20% (T3); 30% (T4) and 40% (T5) level of replacement for soyabean for treatment one to five respectively. One hundred (100) fingerlings with an initial mean weight of 2.5±0.5g were stocked randomly to five treatments in triplicate groups and were fed to satiation twice daily for 70 days. At the end of the experimental period there was no significant difference (P>0.05) among all treatments in terms of specific growth rate and percentage weight gain while feed conversion ratio of T2 (1.61) and T3 (1.78) were significantly different (P<0.05) from that of Control (2.93), T4 (2.86) and T5 (2.55). The specific growth rate and the percentage weight gain had highest values in T1 (1.72 and 13.07 respectively) and lowest value in T5 (1.42 and 10.85 respectively). The protein efficiency ratio was highest in T2 (2.00) which was not significantly different (P>0.05) from T3 (1.89) but had the least value in T1 (1.16). The Net Protein Utilization (NPU) had the highest value in T2 (43.4) while the least NPU value was recorded in T4 (14.65)