Ghaffar  Ebrahimi, 
    Effects of Prebiotic Supplementation on Survival, Growth Performance and Feed Utilization of Kutum,<I> Rutilus frisii kutum </I>(Kamenskii 1901), Fingerlings,
    Research Journal of Animal Sciences,
    Volume 4,Issue 6,
    2010,
    Pages 125-129,
    ISSN 1993-5269,
    rjnasci.2010.125.129,
    (https://makhillpublications.co/view-article.php?doi=rjnasci.2010.125.129)
    Abstract: A feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of a commercial prebiotic, immunogen on growth performance and survival of the kutum <I> Rutilus frisii kutum</I> fingerlings. The fingerlings were adopted for 2 weeks and then reared as triplicate groups in 250-l tanks (n = 50 per tank with average initial weights of 499.1&plusmn;5 mg). Four incremental levels (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.5 g kg<SUP>-1</SUP> prebiotic diet) of a commercial prebiotic, immunogen (Provided by Soroush radian Co., Tehran, Iran) were added to the basal diet A (control) to prepare diets B, C, D and E as the treatments. The fish fed on the experimental diets <I>ad libitum</I> thrice a day for 8 weeks. Weight gain and specific growth rates showed significantly differences among the groups fed different immunogen levels. Feed conversion ratio showed a decrease with increasing immunogen level in diet. Both feed and protein efficiency ratios enhanced significantly with the highest prebiotic level of 2.5 g kg<SUP>-1</SUP> diet (p&lt;0.05). Feed Intake (FI) and Protein Intake (PI) didn&#146;t significantly affect by the prebiotic immunogen level (p&gt;0.05). The lowest mean of total bacterial counts was observed in the fish fed a dietary immunogen level of 2.5 g kg<SUP>-1</SUP> diet (p&lt;0.05). The present study shows that a dietary immunogen supplementation of 1.5 g kg<SUP>-1</SUP> is capable to improve the feed efficacy and growth performance of <I>R. frisii kutum</I> fingerlings.
    Keywords: Kutum;Rutilus frisii kutum (Kamenskii; 1901);growth performance;feed utilization;prebiotic suplementation;survival