Partial and Total Replacement of Jojoba Meal (Simmondsia chinensis) Instead of Fishmeal in Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Fingerlings Diets

The present study was carried out to investigate the total and partial replacement of Jojoba meal (JM), Simmondsia chinensis, with fishmeal (FM) at different levels (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) on growth performance, feed utilization, and carcass composition of Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus fingerlings. Fingerlings with an average weight of 1.65 ± 0.01 g/fish stocked at a rate of 10 fish/aquarium for 84 days experimental period. All experimental diets were isocaloric (437.69 kcal/100 g Dry Matter, DM) and isonitrogenous (30.5% crude protein) and supplemented with 0.5% L-Methionine and 0.5% L-Lysine Hcl. Results showed that there were a significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) in final body weights, average daily gain (g fish -1 day -1 ), specific growth rate (SGR, % day -1 ), feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), protein productive value (PPV%) and energy retention (ER%) among the tested groups. Nile tilapia fingerlings fed on the diet containing 25% S. chinensis protein exhibited comparable growth performance to those fed FM protein based diet. Carcass composition of crude protein decreased significantly (P ≤ 0.05) with increasing JM replacement level above 50%, while replacement 25% JM does not affect DM and Crude Protein of fish flesh. On the other hand, increasing JM replacement level up to 75% increased Ether Extract % significantly (P ≤ 0.05) and increasing JM up to 100% increased ash content significantly (P ≤ 0.05) while energy content (EC) decreased. It could be concluded the replacement of 25% Jojoba meal instead of fishmeal in Nile tilapia fingerlings diets is possible without any adverse effects on its growth performance or feed utilization.