Effects of dietary vitamin E on the growth and breeding performance of Ompok pabda

A 90 day feeding trail was conducted to investigate the effect of vitamin E on the growth and breeding performance of Ompok pabda. A total of 84 healthy female brood fish (41.10±0.44g) were divided into 4 treatments i.e. treatment T1 T2, T3 and T4 having three replications each. The fish were fed twice a day with a standard feed (40% protein) having 4 doses of vitamin E viz. 0 (served as control), 50, 100 and 150mg vitamin E/kg feed. At the end of the feeding trial, the brood fish were induced to breed with PG extract to observe the effect of vitamin Eon feed. After rearing for 90 days with the experimental feeds, it was found that weight gain and specific growth rate of brood fish fed with 100mg vitamin E/kg feed (treatment T3) was the highest (14.78±0.38g and 2.99±0.11) while 150mg vitamin E/kg feed (treatment T4) fed fish gave the poorest result (2.97±0.89g and 1.21±0.32). There was no significant difference in terms of length gain of brood fish among the different treatments. The brood fish were induced to breed with equal dose of PG extract (18 and 12mg PG/kg body weight for female and male respectively) to observe the dietary effect of vitamin E on breeding performance. The highest ovulation, fertilization and hatching rate of eggs were found to be 81.48±6.41%, 84.04±3.53% and 68.59±5.03% respectively in the brood fish of treatment T1 while the poorest (33.33±00%, 52.35±5.02% and 45.70±7.24% respectively) were found in the brood fish under treatment T4. The results suggest that inclusion of 100mg vitamin E/kg feed is best for enhancing the breeding performance of O. pabda brood fish indicating that vitamin E content has a positive impact on reproduction of fish. The present results also imply that inclusion of higher level of vitamin E exerts an antagonistic effect in terms of growth and breeding performance of this species.