ABSTRACT

 A one month study was carried out to determine the growth and nutritional effect of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings fed diet in which Fish meal was replaced with Bambara nut (Voandzeia subterranean). Fish meal (FM) was substituted with Bambara nut waste meal (BNWM) at the following inclusion levels, (FM:BNWM) per feed were; Fl, 70:10, F2, 50:30, F3, 30:50, F4, 10:70. The fish were assigned to the different treatments replicates per treatment containing 12 fishes per replicates. The fish were fed with two grams of feed, three times a day and at the end ofthe day, the siphoned feed and the remaining feed been subtracted from the two grams to know the amount of feed fed to the fish. The fish were fed three times a day to satiation for a period of 30 days and sampling was carried out every two weeks to determine the specific growth rate, percentage survival, feed conversion ratio, protein efficiency ratio and the mean weight gain. After the experiment, among the treatments it was observed that treatment four had the highest mean weight gain followed by treatment two and followed by treatments one and three? respectively. Treatment two was highest in specific growth rate followed by treatment four and one and followed by treatment three. Treatment two had the best FCR followed by treatment four and then by treatment one and lastly by treatment three. Protein efficiency ratio was best in treatment two, followed by treatment four and then by treatment one and lastly by treatment three. Treatment four had the best survival rate followed by treatment one and then followed by treatments two and three. There was significant difference among treatments one and two which the protein efficiency ratio was significantly different from the other treatments and treatment four whose survival rate was also significantly different from the other treatments at (p<0.5).