In order to assess dietary arginine requirement for juvenile golden pompano, an experiment of six different diets with six dietary arginine levels (2.05%, 2.38%, 2.65%, 2.98%, 3.25% and 3.58%) was conducted. The results showed that the content of dietary arginine had a significant effect on weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), feed conversion rate (FCR) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) of golden pompano (P 0.05). Dietary arginine content had a significant effect on serum and hepatic total nitric oxide synthase and lysozyme activities as well as survival rate in a Vibrio harveyi challenge experiment (P < 0.05). Quadratic regression analysis on WG, SGR, FCR and PER indicated that the recommended optimum dietary arginine level for optimal growth of juvenile pompano was 2.73–2.74% of the dry diet, corresponding to 6.32–6.35% of dietary protein.
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