The experiment aimed to compare the use of 5% of inclusion of fish meal (FP), poultry by-products meal (FV), meat and bones meal (FO) and silkworm meal (FC) and a control (soybean meal and corn) as atractants on feed intake and performance of Nile tilapia fingerlings. One hundred and sixty eight Nile tilapia fingerlings (Thai strain) sexually reversed, with average initial weight of 0.72 ± 0.18 g were assigned to a completely randomized experimental design, with five treatments and five replications, where the experimental unit was constituted of a 50 L aquarium with seven animals. The diets were formulated with 32% of crude protein and 3000 kcal of digestible energy/kg, and were isoprotein, isoenergy, isofiber and isoaminoacid for lysine and methionine + cystine. Average values of weight gain in the control or FV and FP treatments as atractant were higher than the FC or FO treatments. Feed:gain ratio of the animals fed ration with FV was better than FC or FO treatment, however they did not differ significantly from the control and the FP treatments. Average animal final size fed the control treatment was higher than the FC treatment and did not differ from the others. Feed intake and survival rate did not differ among the treatments. It was concluded that it's not necessary to include the evaluated feeds, at a level of 5%, to estimulate feed intake or to promote Nile tilapia fingerlings growth.
attractive; protein sources; Nile tilapia; Oreochromis niloticus
