A comparison of lipid content and fatty acids profile of hybrid tilapia,Oreochromis niloticus cultured in freshwater and marine conditions

The paper discusses thoroughly the lipid content and fatty acids profiles of freshwater and marine-cultured hybrid tilapia,oreochromis niloticus. thirty pairs of matured broodstocks hybrid tilapia at size of 600±50 g body weight (bw) were selected and bred in both freshwater (0 ppt) and marine (30 ppt) conditions. larvae were grown to 170±20 g in 4 months and 85 fishes were selected for qualitative and quantitative lipid and fatty acids analysis. results have clearly shown that the content,degree of unsaturation and oxidation of lipids between freshwater and marine-cultured tilapia were not significantly different at 8.40±1.13%,87.92±3.53%,1.28±0.19 meq/kg in freshwater tilapia and 8.12±0.16%,94.15±11.64%,1.50±0.68 meq/kg in marine tilapia respectively. the qualitative results showed that the fatty acids content in both freshwater and marine tilapia had no significant difference. the strong finding of five health-beneficial fatty acids at sufficient level in marine-cultured tilapia,namely lauric acid,pentanedioic acid,heptadecanoic acid,erucic acid and arachidonic acid,have shown a high potential and benefit gained in marine-cultured tilapia. © universiti malaysia terengganu publisher.