APPARENT DIGESTIBILITY COEFFICIENTS OF VARIOUS FEED INGREDIENTS FOR OLIVE FLOUNDER Paralichthys olivaceus  

Most digestibility studies in olive flounder have usually been conducted in the stage of juveniles. Digestibility information on growing or brood stages of the fish is not available up to date.

Olive flounder were fed a reference diet and test diets containing 5 fish meal (anchovy, sardine, pollack, mackerel and white), 4 animal protein sources (meat meal, meat and bone meal, feather meal and poultry meal) and 4 plant protein sources (corn gluten meal, soybean meal, soy protein concentrate, wheat gluten). Apparent digestibility was determined using a reference diet with 1% chromic oxide and test diets containing 70% reference diet and 30% test ingredients. Olive flounder averaging 650 g were stocked in 600L acrylic tanks at a density of 40 fishes per tank. Feces sample were collected from triplicate groups of fish using a fecal collection column attached to a modified Guelph system tanks.

Apparent digestibility of protein, lipid, energy and dry matter were provided in Table 1. These digestibility data could be used for the development of low cost and environment friendly diets for olive flounder in growing and brood stages.