Commercial fish feeds are highly expensive and unaffordable to majority of fish famers, usually fish meal which is scarce and expensive is used in compounding fish feeds. A fourteen-week study was done to determine growth response and gross margin in Nile tilapia fish fed on soybean-blood meal mixture as an alternative protein source to fish meal in formulated rations. Five treatment diets were formulated with each containing 30% crude protein using maize flour, wheat bran, sunflower oil, mineral-vitamins premix and soybean-blood meal mixture ingredients to substitute fish meal at five levels. Diet 1 was positive control with 0% soybean-blood meal mixture, Diet 2 with 25% fish meal substitution with soybean-blood meal mixture, Diet 3 with 50%, Diet 4 with 75% and Diet 5 (100% fish meal substitution) was negative control diet with soybean-blood meal as the main protein source. Three hundred healthy sex reversed (males) Nile tilapia fingerlings weighing (0.7±0.1g) were selected and randomly assigned into fifteen aquaria with twenty fingerlings in each. The five dietary treatments were fed to fish in triplicates at 5% of live weight for fourteen weeks. Ten fish were sampled from each aquarium every two weeks and weighed. The weight recorded was used in calculation of growth response parameters and gross margin. Fish group fed on Diet 4 grew bigger and heavier (53.2g)(p<0.05) compared to Diet 3 (47.8g), Diet 2 (44.6g), Diet 1 (40.5g) and Diet 5 (32.9g). Gross margin analysis based on feeds showed Diet 4 had highest (p<0.05) gross margin (Ksh. 253.14) followed by Diet 3 (Ksh. 196.28). Gross margin for Diet 2 (Ksh. 153.31) and Diet 5 (Ksh. 149.56) were statistically similar (p>0.05) while Diet 1 (110.71) recorded the lowest. Based on the results, soybean-blood meal mixture can be used to substitute fish meal up to 75% in formulated diets to get good returns from Nile tilapia fish farming.
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