EFECTO DEL PROCESAMIENTO DE LA DIETA SOBRE EL DESEMPE？O PRODUCTIVO DE TILAPIA NILóTICA (Oreochromis niloticus Var. Chitralada) EN UN CICLO COMERCIAL DE PRODUCCIóN

the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of feed proccesing (extruded vs pelleted) on productive performance of nile tilapia in a commercial production cycle. sex-reversed fry (504) nile tilapia were fed a four-phase diet (fry, growth 1, growth 2 y finishing) with 43.10%, 36.40%, 31.50% and 28.65% of crude protein, respectively. the diets were processed (extruded or pelleted) in a micro laboratory extruder exteec？ (exteec machines, brazil). the extrusion produced higher growth and feed efficiency until the “growth 2” phase (p<0.05). during the finishing phase the productive performances were similar between feed processing methods. this result should be due to the higher carrying capacity achievement for extruded group and also genered that acumulative cycle performance didn’t have significant differences between treatments.