Productive performance of the Guayas cichlid (Mesoheros festae) fed palm meal based diets during the juvenile stag

Background: The increasingly aquaculture development have favored the searching of new protein sources for fish feeding. Goals: 1) trying to present the first data on the culture of an important commercial species in Ecuador, 2) replacing the protein source for feeding in order to minimize the global problem of the fish-based meals in aquaculture. Methods: Guayas cichlid juvenile fish were submitted to 4 feeding treatments: 0%, 4%, 8% and 12% palm cake replacement for 30 days. Several zootechnnical indexes were calculated and analyzed at the end of the experimental culture, as well as the feed proximal composition. Results: The inclusion up to 8% palm cake did not affect the digestibility coefficients of dry matter, gross protein or gross energy.  No differences were found in final weight, growth rate, food conversion rate, protein efficiency rate and productive value of the protein among 0, 4 and 8% palm meal content treatments. As the percentage of palm kernel meal in the diets was increased, the food conversion rate decreased. Increasing palm meal in diets decreased costs.  Conclusions: The productive performance was not affected by the palm cake replacement in diets up to 8% with palm meal, and deriving in lower feed production costs.