KAFKAS UNIVERSITESI VETERINER FAKULTESI DERGISI, cilt.17, sa.3, ss.363-369, 2011 (SCI-Expanded)
A 13-week feeding experiment was conducted to evaluate potential use of sand smelt meal (SSM) as a replacement of fishmeal in diets for mirror carp fry Cyprinus carpio (0.29 +/- 0.06 g fish(-1)). Three groups were fed to apparent satiation twice daily each of five isonitrogenous (41%; dry matter) and isoenergetic (15.75 MJ DE kg(-1)) diets formulated to include 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100% of fishmeal protein being substituted by SSM. The results indicate that growth performance and feed utilization efficiency for fish fed diets containing SSM up to 75% were similar (P>0.05) to the control diet, except for fish fed the 100% SSM diet. The dietary treatments affected significantly (P<0.05) the hepatosomatic and viscerosomatic indices of fish. There were no significant differences in body composition following inclusion level of SSM. Apparent digestibility coefficients (ADC) of dry matter, lipid and energy were not affected by dietary treatments. However, the ADC of protein for fish fed the %75 SSM diet was higher than the others. These results indicate that up to 75% of fishmeal protein can be replaced by SSM in diets for carp fry without adverse effects on growth, feed utilization and body composition.