Palatability of Diets for Channel Catfish that Contain Amprolium or Salinomycin Using Feed Conversion Ratio as the Criterion

Abstract

Two feeding studies were conducted to evaluate the palatability of diets for juvenile Channel Catfish Ictalurus punctatus that contained the poultry anticoccidial drugs Amprolium or Salinomycin, which are candidates to control the Channel Catfish myxozoan parasite, Henneguya ictaluri. These chemotherapeutic drugs can effectively control outbreaks of other myxozoan parasites in various species of aquaculture fish. To evaluate palatability of diets containing these drugs, Channel Catfish maintained in glass aquaria were fed sinking diets composed of commercial catfish feed that had been pulverized and reformed into pellets that contained three levels of each of the two anticoccidial drugs for short periods of time, e.g. 10 d for Amprolium and 8 d for Salinomycin. Results showed that fish readily consumed the basal control diet containing no drug and diets containing all three levels of Amprolium based on comparisons of feed conversion ratios (FCR) for the four dietary treatments. On the other hand, FCR values of the Salinomycin treatments were significantly (P < 0.05) poorer for the two highest inclusion levels (30 and 60 mg/kg diet) of this drug compared with the control diet, which indicated poor palatability of diets containing these levels of Salinomycin by Channel Catfish.

Received May 31, 2012; accepted September 25, 2012

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This manuscript is approved for publication as journal article no. 12221 of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES), Mississippi State University. This study was supported by the Catfish Health Initiative SCA 68-6402- 7-190.