In vitro digestibility of feed ingredients from bananas with digestive enzymes of the climbing perch (Anabas testudineus)

Abstract

Climbing perch (Anabas testudineus) is a popular local freshwater fish cultured in Thailand. Because of easy-to-raise, fast growing and high demand of the market, the low cost feed has been developed for the benefit of farmers. The purpose of this research was to study in vitro digestibility of feed ingredients with digestive enzymes of the Climbing perch to select the best digestible raw materials used to produce a feed. The in vitro digestibility of 10 raw materials including fish meal, soybean meal, rice bran, broken rice, raw cultivated banana, ripe cultivated banana, raw cavendish banana, ripe cavendish banana, raw golden banana and ripe golden banana was conducted using crude enzymes from the digestive organs of climbing perch. The results showed that the top 3 carbohydrate digestion efficiency were ripe golden banana, 556.4242 µmol/g/ amylase activity, broken rice, 274.1800 µmol/g/ amylase activity and ripe cultivated banana, 120.9618 µmol/g/amylase activity, respectively. The top 3 protein digestion efficiency were soybean meal, 0.125064 µmol/g/ trypsin activity, fish meal, 0.105317 µmol/g/trypsin activity, while ripe cultivated banana and raw cavendish banana were equal to 0.085570 µmol/g/trypsin activity, respectively. The suitable feed ingredients for the climbing perch based on its digestibility were ripe golden banana, ripe cultivated banana and raw cavendish banana, because the efficiency of digestion of protein and carbohydrate was similar to fish meal, rice bran and soybean meal. Since banana has relatively low cost and easily available, it could be used to formulate and improve climbing perch feed both in terms of nutrition and price.