Synergetic Effects of Nettle (Urtica parvifora roxb) Powder with Multienzyme on Growth Performance of Rainbow Trout (Onchorhynuss mykiss, wallabaum, 1792)

Abstract

The use of medicinal plants such as nettle can be safer, less toxic and ensure biosecurity in comparison to the chemical products. But plant or its products can contain antinutritional factors which limit nutrition digestibility and fish growth. Thus, exogenous

multienzymes were added on aquafeed to decrease anti-nutritional factors and ensure

availability of digestible nutrients. So, this study was conducted to evaluate the use of

nettle

powder as feed additive along with multienzyme on growth performance and survival rate of rainbow trout. Five isonitrogenous diet (35% CP) i.e., Control diet with 0.05 gm/kg multienzyme, control diet without multienzyme, diet with 1.5% nettle powder and 0.05 gm/kg multienzyme; diet with 3% nettle powder and 0.05 gm/kg multienzyme and diet with 5% nettle powder and 0.05 gm/kg multienzyme were formulated. The nettle supplementation enhanced fish growth over the control diet; the highest fish growth and better feed utilization was obtained when fish fed on a diet containing diet with 1.5 % nettle powder. There were no significant changes in fish survival among the different treatments and its range was 98.4–100% suggesting that nettle had no toxic effect.