Abstract
Even though tilapia is of great economic interest, data on the nutritional requirements of amino acids during commercial breeding stages are scarce. So, the aim of this study was to analyse the performance and muscular growth of Nile tilapia larvae (Oreochromis niloticus) fed diets containing increasing concentrations of phenylalanine. The experiment took place at the Laboratory of Aquaculture of the Grupo de Estudos de Manejo na Aquicultura (GEMAq) of the Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Parana (Unioeste), Toledo, PR, Brazil, for 30 days. A total of 450 larvae, with mean initial length of 1.5 ± 0.14 cm and mean initial weight of 0.04 ± 0.004 g, were randomly distributed into 6 treatment groups with 5 repetitions (30 tanks). Each experimental unit consisted of a 30 L tank containing 15 larvae. Six diets were formulated with increasing concentrations of phenylalanine (1.09, 1.24, 1.39, 1.54, 1.69 and 1.84%) and offered four times a day until apparent satiation. By the end of the experimental period, the following productivity indexes were analysed: length, weight, survival, weight gain, uniformity, feed conversion, specific growth rate and protein efficiency ratio. Three fish from each tank were collected for muscular growth analysis and the frequency of small ( 0.05) was observed in the productive performance parameters between the treatment groups. Thus, it can be concluded that the levels of phenylalanine contained in the experimental diets did not influence the performance of Nile tilapia larvae. However, there was more hyperplasia when we put 1.39% of phenylalanine in the diet.
Highlights
The Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is one of the fresh water species with the greatest technological package due to its rusticity, climate adaptation, prolificacy and excellent flesh quality [1]
Even though tilapia is of great economic interest, data on the nutritional requirements of amino acids during commercial breeding stages are scarce
Small fibres corresponded to 60% - 90% of the fibres observed, suggesting that muscular growth at this stage occurred mainly by hyperplasia
Summary
The Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is one of the fresh water species with the greatest technological package due to its rusticity, climate adaptation, prolificacy and excellent flesh quality [1]. The farming of this species has been growing and approximately 169.453 thousand tonnes of Nile tilapia were produced in Brazil in 2013 [2]. Studies aimed at increasing productivity while reducing production costs often use plant proteins to replace those of animal origin [3] [4] or include by-products of processing industries [5]. Fish requires ten essential amino acids in their diet: arginine, phenylalanine, histadine, isoleucine, lysine, methionine, threonine, tryptophan and valine, out of which lysine and methionine are the most limiting [8]
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