Effects of substituting dietary fish oil with crude palm oil and palm fatty acid distillate on growth,muscle fatty acid composition and the activities of hepatic lipogenic enzymes in snakehead (Channa striatus,Bloch 1793) fingerling

Three diets were formulated to be iso‐nitrogenous (450 g kg^?1), iso‐lipidic (65 g kg^?1) and iso‐energetic (18.5 KJ g^?1), varying only in their lipid sources and designated as 100% fish oil (FO), 100% crude palm oil (CPO) and 100% palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD). Feed were hand fed to homogenous groups of 12 Channa striatus fingerlings (mean weight 3.5 ± 0.3 g) per tank in triplicate for 12 weeks, in a recirculation system. The growth performance and feed intake in the CPO and PFAD treatments were significantly (P<0.05) higher than those in the fish fed the control diet (FO), respectively, whereas the feed conversion ratio was better in PFAD than that in the other treatments respectively. The biological indices monitored (hepatosomatic index and viscerosomatic index) as well as carcass yield did not vary significantly among all the treatments respectively. The muscle fatty acid (FA) profile of fish was influenced by the composition of the diets fed, whereas no differences were recorded in the activities of the hepatic lipogenic enzymes monitored (fatty acid synthetase, citrate cleavage enzyme and malic enzyme). Whole‐body proximate composition analysis revealed that PFAD treatment, compared with others, contained significantly higher protein and ash, but lower lipid contents, although the muscle content of these nutrients was similar among all the treatments. Based on the results of this trial, CPO and PFAD could be used to partially substitute FO in the diet for C. striatus fingerling, to achieve good growth performance without any negative effects or compromising the muscle n‐3 FA composition (especially in the docosa hexaenoic acid and eicosa pentaenoic acid content).