The experiment was conducted to determine the effects of different dietary carbohydrate(CBH)on the growth performance,body composition and serum biochemical indices of GIFT tilapia(Oreochromis niloticus).Total 720 fish(initial weight:3.03±0.3 g)were randomly assigned to 24 tanks(30 fish/tank)and fed with six experimental diets,which contained 30% different types of carbohydrate(southern brown rice,wheat middling,corn starch,potato starch,sweat potato starch and cassava starch)for 60 days.Daily feeding rate was 4%-6% wet weight.The result showed that the final body weight(FBW),the weight gain(WG),the specific growth rate(SGR)and the protein efficiency ratio in fish of southern brown rice group and corn starch group were significantly higher than those of the other 4 groups,but the feed conversion ratio was on the contrary(P<0.05).The differences in body and muscle composition were significantly affected by the types of dietary carbohydrate(P<0.05).Hepatosomatic index(HSI)is the highest in brown rice and corn starch groups(P<0.05).However,the viserosomatic index,condition factor and survival rate were not observed to have difference in all of the carbohydrate groups(P>0.05).Hepatic glycogen of corn starch group was obviously higher than that of potato starch,sweet potato starch and cassava starch groups(P<0.05),while serum glucose of fish in potato starch and sweet potato starch group is significantly lower than the cassava starch,corn starch,wheat middling,and brown rice groups(P<0.05).CHO and TG showed significant different among the carbohydrate groups(P<0.05),but other serum biochemical indices,mainly relation to TP,SOD,T-AOC and MDA examined in serum were on the contrary(P>0.05).The results indicated that GIFT tilapia could tolerate the six types of dietary containing 30% carbohydrate but they did not impair the growth performance.It was concluded that the different carbohydrate sources in diet would produce significant differences in growth performance of GIFT tilapia.Based on the growth performance(SGR),it is suggested that the optimal dietary carbohydrate sources for GIFT tilapia were brown rice and corn starch in this study.