ABSTRACT
Dietary biotin requirement of fingerling Channa punctatus (4.52 ± 0.46 g) was estimated by conducting a 16-week growth trial. Fish were fed casein gelatin-based purified diets (450 g/kg crude protein, 18.39 kJ/g gross energy) with seven levels of dietary biotin (0, 0.04, 0.09, 0.47, 1.02, 1.43, and 1.96 mg/kg diet) to triplicate groups near to satiation. Significantly higher absolute weight gain (P = 0.0018), specific growth rate (P = 0.0027), protein gain (P = 0.0016), protein deposition (P = 0.0038), and lower feed conversion ratio (P = 0.0003) were shown in fish fed diet containing 0.47 mg/kg biotin, whereas liver biotin concentration showed a significant improvement (P = 0.0021) with increasing levels of dietary biotin up to 1.02 mg/kg. Broken-line analysis of absolute weight gain, protein gain, and liver biotin concentrations indicated that fingerling C. punctatus require biotin at 0.46, 0.44, and 0.97 mg/kg diet. Based on protein gain, optimum pyridoxine requirement for fingerling C. punctatus is recommended at 0.44 mg/kg diet.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to the Chairman Department of Zoology, A. M. U., Aligarh, India for giving necessary laboratory facilities.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.