Digestibility of cassava byproducts for Nile tilapia

Abstract

This work’s objective was to evaluate the digestibility of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and gross energy (GE) and calculate the Digestible Energy of cassava’s by-products: cassava leaf meal, cassava root meal, cassava meal screenings and cassava peel meal for Nile tilapia. Five rations were elaborated and Pelleted, after they had been added with 0.10% of indicator Chromic oxide, being a semi purified diet (DSP) and the others contend 70% of DSP and 30% of the ingredients. It was used 75 young tilapia with average weight of 20g ± 5.0g. The fishes had been lodged in 15 aquariums with 70L water, each
aquarium containing five animals were considered an experimental unit. The experiment was constituted of five treatments and three repetitions. The fishes received meals to apparent satiation from 8:00a.m. to 17:00p.m. daily. The calculated values of EDa were 2886.39; 2682.12; 2662.39 and 1480.67 kcal.kg^-1 for cassava leaf meal, root meal, meal screenings and peel meal, respectively. The calculated Gross Energy CDas were 55.28; 68.63; 70.83; 36.99% and for PB were 53.00; 72.04; 77.64; 52.52% for cassava leaf meal, root meal, meal screenings and peel meal, respectively. The cassava meal screenings
presented better index digestibility, whereas cassava peel meal, the worse ones.