Growth Performance and Hematological Effects of Varying Dietary Processed Leucaena Leucocephala Seed Meal in Clarias Gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) Juveniles (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Aquacultural production in the developing world is greatly constrained by undersupply, scarcity and high cost of conventional fish feed [1]. The ever growing cost and uncertainties about the quality and availability of fishmeal have also compelled most aquaculture nutritionists and feed manufactures to use cheap and readily available plant protein materials (such as Leucaena leucocephala ) as an alternative to the more costly fishmeal [2, 3]. Leucaena leucocephala has been described as a fast growing and drought resistant tropical leguminous tree, which offers the widest assortment of uses among other legumes [4, 5]. Improved growth responses of Oreochromis mossambicus and O. niloticus fed on diets containing 100% leucaena leaf meal (LLM) have been reported [6]. On the other hand, very poor growth response has been observed in O. mossambicus fed on fishmeal diets in which leucaena leaf meal constituted 25% of the meal [7]. A trend of reduced growth performance and feed utilization efficiency was reported in Nile tilapia fed on increasing dietary leucaena leaf meal [8]. There is information that fish fed on processed L. leucocephala seed meal had high digestibility value and high survival rate Hecth et al; Sotolu and Faturoti [9, 10]. Besides its use in production of fish meal, leucaena has been reported as a valuable protein food for ruminant animals [11] and is also used in monogastric production [12, 13]. Clarias gariepinus is the most widely cultured fish species in Nigeria [1]. This could be as a result of its ability to withstand stress due to handling and as a result of unfavourable environmental conditions. It is known to have high conversion rate of feed of diverse substances ranging from plant materials, agricultural by-products and industrial wastes [1]. The fish is presently in high demand in Nigeria; hence there is the need to increase its production at minimum cost towards ensuring the supply of sufficient food fish to the populace at affordable prices. This study, therefore, investigated growth performance and hematological effects of varying dietary processed Leucaena leucocephala seed meal (LSM) in Clarias gariepinus juveniles as the basis for its use as a cheap alternative to fishmeal.