Journal of Aquaculture and Fish Health Vol. 10(1) - February 2021 DOI : 10.20473/jafh.v10i1.18397 Amiruddin et al. (2021) 25 Dietary Effect of Red Paprika Used to Enhance the Coloration of Red Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) M. H. Amiruddin 1 , M. F. Norhalis 2 , Sri Sumarwati 1* and Y. Norma-Rashid 2 1 University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, 86400 Johor, Malaysia 2 University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Abstract Red tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is one of the famous fish cultures in the aquaculture industry, especially in Malaysia. The appearance of redness makes the fish more attractive for customers to buy. Therefore, to achieve quality products it is necessary to research how to improve the color quality of tilapia as desired by customers. The purpose of this study was to identify the dietary effect of red paprika used to enhance the coloration of red tilapia. This study is an experimental quantitative study. Red tilapia was obtained from Freshwater Hatchery, University Malaysia Terengganu. A descriptive analysis was used to analyze the data in this study. This study shows that red paprika has an effect on the length and weight of red tilapia, where the highest length and weight gained (1.79 cm and 12.37 g) given red paprika 2% and the lowest length and weight gained (0.63 cm and 2.5 g) which given 4% red paprika. Only 2% of red paprika treatment showed different growth performance. The crude protein, lipid, and moisture composition of tilapia were also higher at 2% red paprika treatment. Meanwhile, the highest composition of ash is feed with 4% red paprika content. The result of this research showed that the caudal and dorsal either muscle or fin showed the highest color at the fish which fed with 8% red paprika. It could also improve the coloration of the red tilapia. Future studies suggest the use of Dunaliella salina microalgae which is one of the richest sources of carotenoids. INTRODUCTION Fish is one of the sources of protein needed by humans. Tilapia is a type of freshwater fish that is easy to breed and breeds quickly. The world market demand for tilapia is increasing (Ng and Romano, 2013). This is evidenced by the increased production of tilapia which is the third most important commodity after carp and salmon (Fitzsimmons, 2000). Tilapia are widely bred in most tropical countries especially East Asia and the subtropics of the world (El-Sayed, 2006). Red tilapia is an important tilapia for aquaculture in Asia (Welcomme and Vidthayanon, 1999). Red tilapia is one of the famous fish cultures in the aquaculture industry, especially in Malaysia. In Malaysia, aquaculture production is 506,465,25 tons and red tilapia contributes 30,359.45 tons while black tilapia is only 5,071.93 tons (Department of Fisheries Malaysia, 2010). The appearance of redness makes the fish more attractive for customers to buy it. *Correspondence : sri_fatoni78@yahoo.com Received : 2020-03-26 Accepted : 2020-11-16 Keywords : Aquaculture, Red tilapia, Red paprika, Coloration