Abani Deka et al., 2003. Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci., 16 (11): 1661-1665

A feeding trial was conducted for 60 days to study the utilization of fruits processing wastes as feed ingredient in the diet of Labeo rohita fingerlings. 160 fingerlings (average body weight of 1.65 g0.03) were equally distributed into four experimental groups having 4 replicates each. Four different experimental diets were prepared by replacing wheat flour and rice bran with either orange (T2), Citrus aurantium; pineapple (T3), Ananas spp. and Pseudananas spp.; or sweet lime (T4), Citrus sinensis wastes to the basal diet along with the control (T1, without any fruit wastes) keeping the CP level at ~40%. The water quality parameters like DO, CO2, pH, total alkalinity, total hardness, ammonia and water temperature were recorded within the optimum range. The diet containing 25% pineapple wastes (T3) showed significantly higher growth in terms of SGR (1.50), FCR (2.09) and PER (1.19) than the other groups. However, growth of T4 and T2 groups were not significantly different than the control group (T1). Protease activity (17.17 unit/mg protein), protein digestibility (91.57%) and carbohydrate digestibility (41.62%) were not significantly different among the various groups. Survival of the fingerlings were not significantly different among the experimental groups. It was concluded that waste of orange, pineapple and sweet lime can be used at 25% level as a substitute of wheat flour and rice bran in the diet of L. rohita.