Effect of Dietary Addition of Green Tea Camellia sinensis, on Growth, Body Composition and Hematic Biochemistry of the Asian Seabass Lates calcarifer Fingerlings

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary addition by different levels of green tea Camellia sinensis on growth performance, body composition and blood biochemistry of Asian Sea bass, Lates Calcarifer. Therefore, Asian sea bass fingerlings with an initial body weight of 43.20 ± 0.11 grams were randomly assigned into 3 groups as triplicates has been used for the experimental period of 90 days. These fishes were tested with three experimental diets of similar protein content (514.8 ± 0.06 g/kg-1) and energy (48.4 ± 0.02 kcal/g). The first diet was treated as control against the other two without any inclusion of additives. The other two diets were mixed with green tea of 10 g/kg-1 and 20 g/kg-1 respectively. The results clearly shown significant (P<0.05) improvement of growth performance in all fishes fed with green tea as dietary additive when compared with control, whereas the maximum performance is attained from the first treatment with lower dose (10 g/kg-1) of additive. Overall results from the treatments revealed that the dietary inclusion in low levels of green tea as feed additives has relatively improved the growth performance, feed utilization and general health without any adverse effects on biochemical profile of Asian sea bass (Lates calcarifer).