Abstract:
A study on proximate composition of conventional and non-conventional fish feed ingredients was carried
out involving two separate experiments. First experiment was conducted from April 2010 to September
2010 at the Protein and Enzyme Research Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology, Rajshahi University, Rajshahi with a view to determine nutrient (protein, lipid and carbohydrate)
content of some feed ingredients i.e. Rice bran, wheat bran, mustard oil cake, Azolla, grass (Cynodon
dactylon) and leaf of banana (Musa acuminate) among the feed samples, protein, lipid and carbohydrate
content significantly varied from 6.18±0.13 (banana leaf) to 30.53±0.40% (oil cake), 3.06±0.09 (banana
leaf) to 13.33±0.10% (oil cake) and 32.95±0.29 (oil cake) to 66.12±0.47% (wheat bran), respectively.
Second experiment was conducted during the period from April 20 II to September 20 II at Alampur
village of SOOarUpazila under Kushtia district, Bangladesh with a view to evaluate the fish production
and economics under different conventional and non-conventional feed based carp polyculture systems.
There were three replications for each treatment. In this experiment, treatment To(Semi-intensive ponds
fed with feeds like rice bran, wheat bran and oi1cake as control) varied more significantly (P<0.05) for the
mean values of total yield but in terms of total cost, total return, net benefit, net profit margin and eBR
treatment T, (Azolla fed pond) was best. Therefore, the findings indicate that weeds (non-conventional
feed items) are moderately nutritive and low cost effective diets for fish production.
