ALTERNATIVE PROTEIN SOURCES FOR JUVENILE SABLEFISH Anoplopoma fimbria

This study was undertaken to examine the efficacy of corn gluten meal (CGM), soybean meal (SBM) and canola meal (CM) to partially replace fishmeal (FM) in diets for juvenile sablefish. Six experimental diets were formulated to contain CGM and SBM at 10% and 20% and CM at 10% and 15% replacement of FM of a control diet.

The fish culture system consisted of 32 oval, plastic tanks (1,100 L volume) located indoors at the West Vancouver facilities of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Each diet was fed twice daily to apparent satiation to 4 randomly assigned tanks of sablefish for 9 weeks.

Growth rates (DGC; daily growth coefficient) and feed efficiency (FE; weight gain divided by dry weight of diet fed) data were subjected to ANOVA, and significance of differences in treatment means was determined at the 5% rate of error.

The fish attained mean final weights of between 4.5 to 4.9 times the stocking weight and overall survival was 99.4%. There was a significant effect of diet on final weight, growth and FE, with those sablefish fed the diets with the 20% substitution of fishmeal by CGM having slower growth and lower final weight than those fed the control diet.

The results of this trial indicate that SBM can replace up to 20% of FM in feeds for juvenile sablefish without reduction in growth and FE. CM at 10% of FM replacement also appears to be suitable. CGM at 20% was not as efficacious as a replacement of FM as SBM or CM.