Partial replacement of fish feed with seaweed Ulva and its effect on growth and survival of Catla catla fingerlings

Green seaweed Ulva is found in greater amounts on the southern coast of Gujarat. The availability of the nutrient profile of Ulva makes it a viable candidate for use as a fish feed ingredient. This experiment was conducted to check whether Ulva is suitable as partial fish meal on Catla. Diets were prepared by adding different percentages of Ulva (5%, 10%, 15% wet weight or dry weight). 240 Catla fingerlings were randomly distributed among the four treatments. Three replicates of each treatment were set up. To assess growth performance, fish were fed three times a day and data was gathered every 15 days. The whole experiment was conducted for 60 days. Upon completion of experiment specific growth rate, survivability, length gain, weight gain and physiochemical parameters of water were measured. The study suggests that 10% of seaweed Ulva can be incorporated as a partial feed-in diet of Catla. Maximum weight gain, length gain, and specific growth rate were observed in Treatment 2 i.e. at 10% of Ulva incorporation. While survivability had no significant difference in all treatments. From the proximate composition, the highest protein composition was observed in T2 whereas fat and moisture content were higher in T0. Ash content was substantially high in T2. Results indicate that using Seaweed Ulva at a concentration of 10% in a Catla diet can be considered safe, since there were no detrimental impacts on development or nutrient utilization.