Nutrition and reproductive performance of African catfish fed bitter kola (Garcinia kolal)

A ten weeks feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of bitter kola on the growth performance, hematology and sperm quality of juvenile African catfish (Clarias gariepinus). Six diets of 40% crude protein were formulated with different inclusion levels of bitter kola seed meal. Diet1 (control) has 0g/kg of the seed meal while Diet2, Diet3, Diet4, Diet5 and Diet6 contained 50g/kg, 100g/kg, 150g/kg, 200g/kg, 250g/kg bitter kola seed meal(BKSM) respectively. A total of sixty (60) healthy juvenile Clarias gariepinus were randomly selected and distributed in into twelve (12) plastic tanks at stocking rate of five (5) fish per tank and the experiment was replicated twice. Fish were fed twice a day, morning (8;00hr) and evening (17:00hrs) for ten weeks, At the end of the feeding period, blood samples were collected from the fish samples for haematological analysis and growth rate were determined.FMW, MWG, PWG, SGR, AFI, FCR PI and PER were significantly different across the treatment groups (p&lt;0.05). Fish fed dietary treatment T2 (100g/kg BKSM), has the highest values of PWG (83.40%) and PER (0.22) while the lowest values of PWG (11.00%) and PER (0.04) were obtained in dietary treatment T6 (250g/kg BKSM) However, the least value of FCR (0.74) was recorded in fish fed dietary treatment T2 (100g/kg BKSM) while dietary treatment T6 (250g/kg BKSM) had the highest FCR value (1.01).Haematology of African catfish ranging from HB, PVC, WBC, RBC, MCH, MCHC to lymphocyte were not significantly affected by varying levels of Kola in the diets.It has been found that fish growth reduced while sperm quality increased with increased levels of bitter kola. Therefore, it can be concluded that bitter kola can be included in the diet of African catfish at the rate of 150g/kg BKSM (T4) for improving the sperm quality and 50g/kg BKSM (T2) for optimum growth performance.</p