Effects of ?-Tocopherol Supplemented Corn Gluten Meal Based Diet on Growth, Nutrient Digestibility and Antioxidant Activity of Catla catla Fingerlings

摘要

A feeding trial of 70 days was conducted to assess the effects of α-tocopherol on growth performance, antioxidant activity and nutrient digestibility of C. catla fingerlings (7.05 ± 0.02 g body weight and 6.05 ± 1.07 cm body length) were fed on corn gluten meal-based diets. The α-tocopherol was supplemented at various concentrations viz., 0, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600 mg/kg of body weight. Triplicate tanks were used for feeding trial and each tank housed 15 fingerlings. During trial, fingerlings were fed at 5% of their body weight. Completely randomized design (CRD) was followed to allocate test diets to the fish groups. Our results showed that 300 mg/kg of α-tocopherol was the optimal level that had a significant role in improving growth parameters such as weight gain (230%) and feed conversion ratio (1.80). Nutrient digestibility parameters i.e., crude protein (75.79%), crude fat (76.54%) and gross energy (61.03%) were best observed at the same level compared with the control and other test diets. Furthermore, antioxidant status of the fish was improved with the increase in concentration of α-tocopherol, so, only 5.46% oxidation was observed at 600 mg/kg. It was concluded from present project that corn gluten meal-based diet supplemented with 300 mg/kg level of α-tocopherol proved to be effective in developing low cost, nutritionally balanced and environment friendly feed for C. catla.