O. ALTAN1 and A. YILDIRIM KORKUT2
1 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Sub-Regional Office for Central Asia, Ivedik Cad. no:55; Yenimahalle-Ankara, Turkey
2 University of Ege,Department of Aquaculture, Faculty of Fisheries, Bornova-Izmir, Turkey Abstract
ALTAN, O. A. YILDIRIM KORKUT, 2010. Effects of temperature and dietary carbohydrate level to growth performance and feed digestibility of European sea bass juveniles (Dicentrarchus labrax). Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 775-782
In this study, the effect of temperature and dietary starch level on growth performance and nutrient utilisation in European sea bass juveniles was investigated. An experimental diet as the control was formulated to contain 50% crude protein, 11.5% crude lipids and 30% pregelatinized starch (diet 1); two other diets were formulated to include the same levels of all ingredients as diet 1 except for the pregelatinized starch, which was included at 20% (diet 2) or 10% (diet 3). Diets were assigned to triplicate groups of 25 fish (initial weight: 22 g) at two water temperatures (20°C and 27°C) for 10 weeks. The group receiving diet 1 was fed to apparent satiation and groups fed diets 2 and 3 were pair-fed according to group fed diet 1, so that each group ate the same amount of all nutrients except for carbohydrates. At the end of the trial, growth rate, feed efficiency and protein efficiency ratio were higher at 27°C than at 20°C. Dietary starch level did not affect growth or N utilisation. Feed efficiency was inversely related to dietary starch level. ADC of protein was neither affected by temperature nor dietary starch levels.