Evaluation of Liptoaqua on Growth and Immunological performance of GIFT Tilapia and its response against Streptococcus agalactiae via different challenging methods

The present study aimed to evaluate the application of Liptoaqua in diet on growth and survival of GIFT Tilapia. Animals (50 +/- 0.2 g) were stocked for 42 days with a biomass of 1.25kg per tank (500 litres) in triplicate. Fishes fed with commercial diet containing 5 g kg(-1) of Liptoaqua served as treatment and commercial diet without Liptoaqua serving as control. Feed intake, weight gain, specific growth rate and feed conversion ratio were significantly (p<0.05) higher in treatment compared to control. No significant differences were observed in hepatosomatic and viscerosomatic indices for both control and treatment. Inclined levels of respiratory burst activity, lysozyme and glucose activity were recorded in treatment than control variants (p< 0.05). The fishes challenged with Streptococcus agalactiae (1x10(6) CFU/ml) at the end of the trial exhibited the least cumulative mortality percentage by immersion method (20%) and highest mortality (42%) by intraperitoneal injection challenge method in treatments for over 10 days of exposure. The results of this study showed positive impact on growth and disease resistance of GIFT against S. agalactiae through the dietary supplementation of Liptoaqua.