Aceh Journal of Animal Science (2023) 8 (2): 53 - 58 Aceh Journal of Animal Science Journal homepage: www.jurnal.unsyiah.ac.id/AJAS * Corresponding author. Email address: rudyagung.nugroho@fmipa.unmul.ac.id Printed ISSN 2502-9568; Electronic ISSN 2622-8734 This is an open access article under the CC - BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Effect of water hyacinth leaf flour (Eichhornia crassipes) fermented by Aspergillus niger in the commercial pellet on the growth, survival rate and blood profile of sangkuriang catfish (Clarias gariepinus) Febri Ariyanto 1 , Rudy Agung Nugroho 2* , Retno Aryani 3 , Hetty Manurung 4 , Rudianto Rudianto 2 1 Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. 2 Animal Physiology, Development, and Molecular Laboratory, Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. 3 Animal Anatomy and Microtechnique Laboratory, Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. 4 Plant Physiology and Development Laboratory, Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. ARTICEL INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Clarias gariepinus Eichhornia crassipes Growth Survival Rate Blood Profile Received: 22 March 2023 Accepted: 25 May 2023 Available online: 26 May 2023 DOI: 10.13170/ajas.8.2.31390 Introduction African catfish or locally known as sangkuriang fish (Clarias gariepinus) is one of the freshwater fish commodities that has a great potential to be cultured (Marimuthu et al., 2019). This fish has been cultivated commercially and is growing rapidly on limited land production (Sorongan et al, 2019; Muchlisin et al., 2015). In addition, catfish can be kept with high stocking densities in line with current market demand (Simanjuntak et al., 2020). In addition, catfish production has increased by an average of 9.23% per year (KKP, 2021). The culture of catfish in the community has encouraged aquaculture business actors to continue to strive for maximum production (Audila and Zulfahmi, 2021). However, this is inversely proporsional to the availability of catfish which is still not matched by the availability of feed that affects production costs (Prasekti and Irfan, 2021). Several efforts have been done to reduce dependence on Sangkuriang catfish (Clarias gariepinus) is one of the aquaculture commodities with great potential to be developed in Indonesia to support the demand for feed. Efforts to reduce dependence on imported feed raw materials for fish feed is continued. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crasspies) leaf which contains phytochemical compounds such as flavonoids, tannins, steroids and saponins is an alternative raw material for fish pellet component. This study aimed to determine the addition of fermented water hyacinth leaf meal in fish feed on the growth, survival rate, and blood profile of sangkuriang catfish. In total 150 fish (average initial weight 5.45 ± 0.02 g) were randomly divided into triplicates of five groups, containing 10 fishes per group. Group one is a control group, P1 (10% of non-fermented water hyacinth leaf meal), while P2, P3 and P4 were treatment groups of fish fed with 10, 15, and 20% fermented water hyacinth leaf meal by Aspergillus niger. At the end of the 42 days of treatment, growth, survival rate, and blood profile of all fish were determined. The results showed that the addition of 10% water hyacinth leaf meal fermented by A. niger had an effect on the growth of final weight, body weight gain and specific growth rate (p < 0.05) in comparison to all groups. However, the addition of any concentration of water hyacinth leaf meal did not affect on the feed conversion ratio and survival rate value. Further, the addition of water hyacinth leaf meal had a significant effect (p < 0.05) on the erythrocytes, leukocytes and hemoglobin of fish, but did not show a significant effect on the values of hematocrit and platelets. It is concluded that addition of the fermented 10% water hyacinth leaf meal in the feed has beneficial to improve the growth of sangkuriang catfish.