(1) Background: In aquaculture, chronic stress due to high stocking density impairs animals' welfare and results in declined fishery production with low protein quality. However, most previous studies evaluated the effects of high stocking density on trout in freshwater rather than seawater. (2) Methods: Juvenile trout were reared for 84 days in circular tanks under three stocking densities, including low density ("LD", 9.15 kg/m3), moderate density ("MD", 13.65 kg/m3), and high density ("HD", 27.31 kg/m3) in seawater. The final densities of LD, MD, and HD were 22.00, 32.05 and 52.24 kg/m3, respectively. Growth performance and lipid metabolism were evaluated. (3) Results: Growth performance and feeding efficiency were significantly reduced due to chronic stress under high density in mariculture. The digestive activity of lipids was promoted in the gut of HD fish, while the concentration of triglycerides was decreased in the blood. Furthermore, decreased acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) and fatty acid synthase (FAS), increased hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) concentrations, and activated hepatic β-oxidation processes were observed in trout under HD. Redundancy analysis showed that glycerol and HSL can be used as potential markers to evaluate the growth performance of trout in mariculture. (4) Conclusions: We showed that chronic high stocking density led to negative effects on growth performance, reduced de novo synthesis of fatty acids, and enhanced lipolysis.
Keywords: HSL; crowding stress; glycerol; juvenile trout; seawater.