Evaluation of prebiotic (Isomaltooligosaccharide)‎ as a feed additive on growth performance, digestibility and intestinal histology of nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)‎

Abstract EN

The work was carried out to study the effect of prebiotic (isomaltooligosaccharide) (IMO) (3g /Kg diet) in the diet of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) on the body weight gain, feed conversion ratio, digestibility and intestinal histology.

In this work, 90 Nile tilapia (~ 7.6 g) were used.

Diets were fed to triplicate groups of 45 fish for 16 weeks and within last 4 weeks titanium dioxide was added to all diets as a digestibility marker.

The bulk weight of fish / aquarium was obtained biweekly.

Generally, growth performance and feed utilization were non-significantly different between groups during the study except at the end of 14th week where it were significantly improved in IMO-treated group over the control one.

Protein and dry matter digestibility was non-significantly different between groups.

Also, intestinal perimeter ratios in both intestinal regions were non-significantly different between groups with the highest ratios obtained by IMO-treated group.