The Effect of Sodium bentonite on Growth, Survival and biochemical Composition of Juvenile Beluga (Huso huso)

Abstract

For improving the hydro-stability of pelleted feed of juvenile Beluga in confined area and its growth performances, an nutritional experiment was conducted for 8 weeks duration, using sodium bentonite as a binder. In this experiment, four treatments with a level of 0, 1, 1.5 and 2 percent with iso-nitrogenus (45±.61) and iso-lipedic (16 ±0.77) were formulated and feed to triplicate group of fish. three-hundred and seventy five juvenile Beluga of size (22 ± 0.7g) were randomly selected and distributed between 12 fiber glass tanks of 500L capacity. The juvenile beluga which was fed with diet containing 1.5% sodium bentonite had the highest RGR, PER and FER and shown significant with other treatments (p<0.05). the result of this experiment was not shown any significant differences in growth and feed efficiency in treatment (control) and treatment 2% . Body carcass composition, except ash content, did not show noticeable significance differences between treatments (p>0.05).In general, treatment 1.5% sodium bentonite was shown to be the most reliable one.