An attempt was also done by Basudha and Vishwanath (1997) to study the growth performance,
feed conversion ratio, and protein efficiency ratio of a formulated feed containing Azolla powder,
fish meal, mineral, vitamin supplements and feed containing rice bran, mustard oil cake in a feeding
trial on O. belangeri. The growth of fish in the manured ponds, where no supplementary feed was
given, was considered as a control group. The growth was compared in all these groups, which
showed that the percentage of weight gained by the fish fed with Azolla powder was highest. A
better growth in the fries in these studies could be attributed to the presence of both plant and animal
proteins and probable balance of amino acid composition (Saavedra et al., 2008).