Title: Assessing the Protective Effects of Allium sativum and Zingiber officinale Against Aflatoxin-Induced Growth Suppression in Clarias gariepinus
Authors: Ayokunle Isaac Ilesanmi, Onome Augustina Bubu-Davies , Osemwegie OO O.M.G. Abu
Volume: 9
Issue: 6
Pages: 335-344
Publication Date: 2025/06/28
Abstract:
The mycotoxins incidents in foods and animal feeds are a major concern globally. Allium sativum (garlic) and Zingiber officinale (ginger) are medicinal plants with the potential to mitigate the effects of mycotoxin-contaminated feed. In this study, the fish feed was inoculated with Aspergillus flavus to induce varied concentrations of aflatoxin contamination. There were eight (8) treatments (TRT 1 to TRT 8) with three replicates where TRT 1 was uncontaminated-feed, and TRT 2 was aflatoxin-contaminated feed. Feed with 20g/kg, 40g/kg, and 60g/kg of pulverized garlic constitute TRT 3, TRT 4, and TRT 5, respectively while 20g/kg, 40g/kg, and 60 g/kg of ginger-included feed were TRT 6, TRT 7 and TRT 8 respectively. This was conducted in twenty-four (24) 30 litres of glass tanks for 8 weeks. The growth, physical factors, and survival rate parameters were investigated using standard methods. There was a significant reduction (p>0.05) in growth parameters recorded in TRT2 average weight gain (AWG) (16.65g), daily growth index (DGI) (1.46kJ/day), percentage weight gain (PWG) (89.36%), specific growth rate (SGR) (1.52g/day), metabolic growth rate (MGR) (7.19kJ/day), and protein efficiency ratio (PER) (1.19) compared to TRT1. TRT8 showed an increase in AWG (28.00g), DGI (26kJ/day), PWG (159.18%), SGR (27g/day), MGR (10.75kJ/day), and PER (1.86) compared to the other feed-impregnated treatments. The physicochemical parameters observed were within the tolerance range for fish culture. Therefore, this study supported the use of garlic and ginger as potential biological feed input to mitigate the impact of aflatoxin contamination on the growth and metabolism of C. gariepinus.