Dietary dehulled soybean meal as a replacement for fish meal in fingerling and growing olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus (Temminck et Schlegel)

Two experiments were conducted to determine the optimum dietary inclusion level of dehulled soybean meal (DHSM) as a fish meal (FM) replacement in diets for olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus. All the experimental diets were formulated to be isonitrogenous and isoenergetic to contain 50% crude protein (CP) and 16.7 kJ energy g(-1) diet. In the first experiment, eight diets were formulated to replace FM with DHSM at 0%, 10%, 20% without amino acid (AA) supplementation; 20%, 30%, 40% with AA supplementation and 30%, 40% with AA & attractant supplementation (DHSM0, DHSM10, DHSM20, DHSM20+AA, DHSM30+AA, DHSM30+AA+Att, DHSM40+AA, DHSM40+AA+Att respectively). Triplicate groups of 25 fish averaging 5.0+/-0.04 g (mean+/-SD) were fed one of eight experimental diets for 8 weeks. In the second experiment, six diets were formulated to replace FM with DHSM at 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% without attractant supplementation and 20%, 30% with attractant supplementation (DHSM0, DHSM10, DHSM20, DHSM30, DHSM20+Att, DHSM30+Att respectively). Triplicate groups of 15 fish averaging 45.5+/-0.08 g (mean+/-SD) were fed one of six experimental diets for 10 weeks. Based on growth performance, we concluded that DHSM could replace FM up to 20% without AAs (lysine and methionine) and attractant supplementation, and up to 30% with AAs and/or attractant supplementation in diets for fingerling and growing olive flounder.