Effect of dietary lipid level on the growth performance, feed utilization, body composition and blood chemistry of juvenile starry flounder (Platichthys stellatus)

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the effect of dietary lipid level on the growth performance, feed utilization, body composition and blood chemistry of juvenile starry flounder. Five isonitrogenous diets with increasing dietary lipid levels (6%, 10%, 14%, 18% and 22% dry material) were each fed to triplicate groups of starry flounder (29.9 g) for 8 weeks. Weight gain (WG) and specific growth rate of fish fed the 6% lipid diet were significantly lower than the other groups, while there was no significant difference in fish fed the 10%, 14%, 18% and 22% lipid diets. Body lipid content increased with increasing dietary lipid levels. The moisture content of the whole body was negatively correlated to the dietary lipid level. The dietary lipid level also affected the lipid content of the dorsal muscle positively. Liver lipid content increased as the dietary lipid level increased from 6% to 14% and then decreased. With increasing dietary lipid level, the nitrogen retention achieved the highest value when the fish were fed the 14% lipid diet, but there were no significant differences with the 10% and 22% groups. The plasma total protein content first showed an increasing and then a decreasing trend with increasing dietary lipid level, and it was significantly higher in the 14% lipid group than other groups. Based on the WG response using the broken-line model, the optimum dietary lipid level for juvenile starry flounder was estimated to be 10.62% in the experiment.