Nutrition and feeding play a central and essential role in the sustainable development of aquaculture. Therefore, the development of new, balanced commercial diets that promote optimal fish growth and health is imperative. Annually, a massive volume of saffron petals is dumped as waste. Therefore, finding a suitable solution for recycling this huge amount of waste is very important. One of the solutions can be the use of saffron petals as a stimulant to growth and immune system in aquaculture industry. For these purpose, 450 healthy rainbow trout fingerlings were randomly distributed into three experimental groups (50 fish/treatment in three replicates) and fed for 8 weeks with diet containing aqueous extract of saffron petal (T1 fish), diet containing ethanol extract of saffron petal (T2 fish) and diet without extract (control group, C fish). Results showed that diet containing ethanolic extract of saffron petals improved the growth performance (weight gain, weight gain rate, specific growth rate, daily growth rate, condition factor) in the rainbow trout fingerling compared to the control group and as well as aqueous extract incorporated diet. No mortality was observed due to consumption of diets containing saffron petal extract, either aqueous extract or ethanolic extract during the 8 week trial period. This study demonstrated that saffron petal can be used as an alternative or supplementary drug in aquaculture.

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