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¹ Aydın Adnan Menderes University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Aydın, Turkey
² Ege University, Faculty of Fisheries, Aquaculture Department, 35100, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey
³ İzmir Bakırçay University, Menemen Vocational School, Laboratory and Veterinary Health, İzmir, Turkey DOI : 10.4194/AQUAST1228 Viewed : 1501 - Downloaded : 1573 The present study investigated the effects of dietary commercial probiotic Lactobacillus sp. and commercial prebiotic glycyrrhizic acid on the growth performance, feed utilization and digestive enzymes activities of Nile tilapia. Seven diets with or without probiotics and prebiotics supple-mentation namely Control (without probiotics and prebiotics), P10, P20 and P30 (Control + Pro-aqua) and V2, V4 and V6 (Control +Viusid) were fed to juvenile Nile tilapia (5.22±0.05 g) for 60 days in triplicate tanks (30 fish per tank). All fish were fed ad libitum three times a day for 60 days. At the end of the experiment, the weight gain and specific growth rate of the fish fed with probiotic content group was found to be higher than the other groups (P<0.05). In the experiment, there was no change in the nutritional value of tilapia fed with a diet containing all feeding groups (P>0.05). On the other hand, significant changes were observed in alkaline and acid protease enzyme activities depending on the days (P<0.05). Especially, after the first 15-day period of the experiments, increases in both supplemented groups enzyme activities were determined. The increase in enzyme activity in the probiotic supplemented groups showed higher activity than the prebiotic administered groups (P<0.05). It can be concluded that probiotic can act as a growth promoter and increase digestive enzymes activity in tilapia. Keywords : Nutrition Growth promoter Immunostimulant