Journal of Aquaculture Research & Development

Abstract

Application of Aquatic Macrophytes in Aquaculture: A Review on Aquatic Macrophyte in Aquafeed and their Effects on Fish

Ajay Singh Sikarwar*

Rapidly rising demand of animal protein together with a high market price of commercially available fish diets urges a necessity of procuring low cost alternative feedstuff for sustainable fisheries. Duckweed, a small family of floating aquatic monocots, a good source of plant protein with a potentiality of replacing costly animal based proteins in fish feed. Various studies have been performed evaluating the nutritive quality of duckweed species and its usage as fish meal replacement for various fish species. The easy adaptability to diverse culture conditions also displaying the possibility of duckweed as a supplementation for feeding purpose in aquaculture. Many study reveals the beneficial role of duckweed on feeding fish at different inclusion level in their diets elicit better growth rate, digestion and other metabolic activities. However, the high inclusion level of plant protein exerts growth depression which can be overcome undergoing different processing techniques. Approaches towards applying molecular tools to understand the involvement of growth factors and gene expression in connection to feed nutrition could be helpful to meet the need of fish production along with its profitability in aquaculture industry.

Published Date: 2025-01-10; Received Date: 2023-06-13