AQUACULTURE NUTRITION, cilt.12, sa.5, ss.340-347, 2006 (SCI-Expanded)
A 60 days feeding experiment was carried out with
Black Sea turbot
Psetta maeotica to determine the amount
of poultry by-product meal (PBM) that could replace fish
meal (FM) in formulated diets without reducing growth
performance. Juvenile Black Sea turbot (initial average
weight, 30 g) were fed five isoenergetic (gross energy,
20.5 ± 0.21 kJ g
)1 diet) and isonitrogenous diets (protein
content, 550 ±0.35 g kg
)1). The control diet used white
FM as the sole protein source, the other four diets were
prepared to replace FM protein at levels of 25%, 50%,
75% and 100% with PBM. The fish readily accepted all
experimental diets and no mortality were recorded during
the trial. There were no significant differences in growth
performance of turbot (
P < 0.05) fed the diets with 25%
and 50% replacement levels compared with fish offered
the control diet (100% FM), however, final body weight
and specific growth rate values in the 50% replacement
diet were about 8% lower than those of the control.
Total nitrogen excretion in fish fed 50% replacement diet
were about 10% higher than the control group,
even though these parameters were not found to be statistically
different. At the levels of 750 and 1000 g kg
)1 of
the protein, PBM inclusion caused a severe decrease in
growth performance, feed utilization, protein efficiency
ratio and per cent nitrogen retention. The results in the
present study indicate that up to 25% of FM protein can
be replaced by PBM protein without causing reduction in
growth performance, nutrient utilization and nitrogen
retention.