Background: Bioprocessing of plant feedstuff can be a novel approach for reducing the overwhelming dependence on fish meal in aquaculture. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei fed solid-state fermented protein concentrates in order to replace fish meal in the diet.
Results: In the first trial, a group of 15 shrimp (average 3.88 g) were randomly distributed into aquaria in triplicate according to the experimental diets. Ten isonitrogenous (400 g kg-1 CP) and isolipidic (90 g kg-1 CL) diets were formulated to contain high-protein fish meal (HFM) and low-protein fish meal (LFM), and four types of bioprocessed protein concentrates (BPCs) as a replacement of fish meal (BPC-A, -B, -C and -D) each at 30% and 50% FM replacement levels. BPC-A was a solid-state fermented mixture of soybean and corn gluten meals; BPC-B was pre-treated acid-hydrolyzed BPC-A; BPC-C and BPC-D were BPC-A + 2% shrimp soluble extract (SSE) and BPC-B + 2% SSE, respectively. After 8 weeks, shrimp fed the HFM, BPC-B, BPC-C and BPC-D diets showed significantly higher growth performance at 30% FM replacement than those of shrimp fed the BPC diets at 50% FM replacement. Interestingly, shrimp fed the BPC-D diet could replace up to 50% FM replacement. In the second trial, the results show that apparent digestibility coefficients of feeds and apparent digestibility coefficients of ingredients for crude protein were significantly higher in fish fed the BPC-B, BPC-C and BPC-D diets.
Conclusions: The results demonstrated successful partial replacement of high-protein fish meal using high-quality fermented protein concentrates from plant sources. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.
Keywords: Pacific white shrimp; digestibility; growth performance; high-protein fish meal; solid-state fermentation.
© 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.