Abstract
In the present study, the effects of different dietary protein levels on salema porgy, Sarpa salpa (Linnaeus, 1758) juveniles were investigated. Six iso-caloric (20 kJ/g diet) diets with increasing protein levels (30, 37, 40, 47, 50, and 57%) were formulated. Each test diet was randomly fed to triplicate groups of 13 juvenile fish (initial mean weight 19.28±0.13 g) to satiety over 90 days. Growth performance and feed utilization were best with low dietary protein levels of 30 and 37%, but decreased with diets containing protein levels over 40%. Ammonia nitrogen excretion showed an increasing trend as dietary protein levels gradually increased, whereas retention rates of ammonia nitrogen per intake were highest in the low protein groups of 30 or 37%. The analyses of specific growth rate by broken-line regression indicated that the optimal dietary level of protein for salema porgy juvenile were 33.6% under the conditions applied in this study. As a result, S. salpa demonstrated better growth with low protein diets, showing that this marine fish could be a promising candidate for a sustainable and environment friendly aquaculture industry.
Highlights
The growing trend of marine aquaculture in southern European seas has doubled its production in the last ten years and reached about 276.000 tons with a total income of 1.783.000.000 US dollars in year 2014 [1]
Best growth performance in salema porgy juveniles were obtained when fed a diet with 37% protein
Based on the polynomial regression analyses [18] used for the relation between dietary protein levels and the specific growth rates (SGR), it was recorded that the optimum protein requirement for juvenile salema porgy was about 33.6% of the diet under the conditions applied in this study (Figure 2)
Summary
The growing trend of marine aquaculture in southern European seas has doubled its production in the last ten years and reached about 276.000 tons with a total income of 1.783.000.000 US dollars in year 2014 [1]. The aquaculture industry, with its increasing trend seems to be capable to supply an important amount of the food demand for human consumption. Schooling behaviour of salema porgy around cage farms in the Mediterranean has been reported in an earlier study [7], feeding on uneaten pellets that disperse from the fish pens, which is an indication that salema porgy can adapt to artificial pellet diets. From this point of view, salema porgy might be potential marine fish species for the Mediterranean aquaculture industry
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