This study was carried out to investigate the effects of dietary Moringa (Moringa oleifera) leaf (ML) meal on growth, feed utilization, whole body composition and physiological profile of Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (L.) fry.
ML was added to the tested diets (30% protein and 454.70 kcal/100 g diet) at a rate of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0% (ML 0, ML 0.5, ML 1.0, ML 1.5 and ML 2.0). Fish (0.83± 0.2 g) were randomly distributed into each aquarium at a rate of 10 fish /aquarium and fed the tested diets at a feeding rate of 5% for 12 weeks.
The results indicated that fish fed diets containing 0.5 - 1.5% ML exhibited higher growth than the other treatments. On the other hand, protein efficiency ratio and protein productive value of fish fed 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 ML were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) higher than fish groups fed the other diets. Significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) was found in the whole-body composition (moisture, crude protein, and ash) of fish at the end of the experiment and the best values were obtained with ML 1.0 diet. The concentrations of Hb, PCV, and total protein of fish fed 1% ML were increased significantly (P ≤ 0.05), while the activities of all the tested liver and kidney function enzymes in serum among other ML levels were decreased significantly (P ≤ 0.05). The present study suggested that dietary ML supplementation could improve the performance and physiological responses of Nile tilapia fry and its optimum inclusion level is 1% ML.