Farinha de Nauphoeta cinerea na alimentação da Tilápia-do-Nilo

Abstract

In fishes feeding, protein foods are the ones that most elevate the final price of the rations. Thus, the use of insects as an alternative food for fishes has aroused great interest, due to the ease of breeding, fast reproduction and, still, they have a good amount of nutrients. Therefore, studies are needed to define the best way to use insects, in addition to the ideal quantities that should be added to the rations. Thus, the objective of this research was to evaluate the productive performance, the vicerosomatic, hepatosomatic and visceral fat indexes, the centesimal composition and blood glucose of Nile Tilapia, fed with diets containing different amounts of Nauphoeta cinerea flour. Were used 200 juveniles of Nile Tilapia, with an average initial weight of 19.44 ± 1.74 g, distributed in 20 tanks, forming a completely randomized design, composed of four treatments and five repetitions. The treatments consisted of rations in which Nauphoeta cinerea flour was included, forming the treatments: Control (without N. cinerea flour), 6, 12 and 18% of N. cinerea flour. At the end of the experimental period, the average production performance parameters were determined: final biomass, biomass gain, final weight, weight gain, apparent feed consumption, apparent feed conversion and survival rate. In addition, the vicerosomatic, hepatosomatic and visceral fat indexes, blood glucose and the centesimal composition of the fish carcass were determined. Performance parameters were not affected by the inclusion of N. cinerea flour, with the exception of food consumption, which decreased linearly. The vicerosomatic and hepatosomatic indexes and blood glucose of fish showed a linear increase. The centesimal composition of the fish carcass was not affected. Thus, it was concluded that it is possible to use up to 18% of N. cinerea flour in the ration for Nile Tilapia.