Introduction

Lake Tana, in Ethiopia, is the largest lake used for capture fisheries fishing and highly promising
for aquaculture development in the country. but However, it is highly invaded by the worst
weed known as water hyacinth (Eichornia crappies Solms). The best option for weed
management is to convert this weed into vermicomposting as organic bio fertilizer, with red
earthworms assisting in the process.The conversion of this weed into vermicomposting as
organic bio fertilizer using red earthworms to facilitate the process is the best option for the
management of the weed.
Moreover, utilizing of this water hyacinth based byproduct of red earthworms as a meal to
replace fish meal will have a dual purpose to benefit fish farmers significantly. It can serve as
source of raw material for the processing of fish feed formulation, that in turn resulting in
reducinglower feed cost and transportation, including toas well as increasinge the availability of
meal ingredients that substitute the high quality protein, fish mealfishmeal, in the rural fish
culturing farming areas. It is also an alternative way of good management to utilize this extra
nitrogen rich by-product instead of dumping and polluting the lake ecosystem.
The production in aquaculture is highly dependent on quality protein feeds, and hence the
fishmeal (FM) andalongside fish oils isare the main drivers of the success of the industry. Due to
itsthe high protein, lipid, and amino acid profile, fishmeal has been highly utilized as a feed
ingredient (Shepherd and Jackson, 2013). However, the product is becoming scarcer by the day
in and day out spellingday, spelling doom for the aquaculture industry more aggravated in the
developing countries like Ethiopia, where planning to commence aquaculture as a strategy of
food security. The scarcity of the resource is directly affecting the price of the commodity has a
direct impact on the commodity price, raisinghence increasing the production cost in fish
farming (Ayoola, 2010). So that it has prompted researchers to seek high-quality, less
expensive, and sustainable alternative protein sources for fish feed formulation (Musyoka et al.,
2020). Therefore, non‐conventional protein sources, such as red earthworms (E. fetida), have
gained attention to provideas an alternative protein source due to their nutritional values that
are close to that those of fishmeal (Musyoka et al., 2020).
According to Mulugeta Tolemariam et al. (2013), the amendment of aquaculture practice in
Ethiopia is one of the mitigation measures for the overexploitation of lake resources. Hence , to
develop the productive aquaculture practices in the country, it is necessary to apply low-cost,;
nutritionally complete, locally produced fish feed that is partially or fully replaced for fish meal.
Therefore, this study aimed to investigate a locally produced low-cost protein source from red
earthworm, which is the by-product of water hyacinth, based on vermicompost for Nile tilapia
fingerlings.