World Aquaculture 2023

May 29 - June 1, 2023

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

REPLACING FISHMEAL WITH CORN FERMENTED PROTEIN WITH SOLUBLES (CFPS) IN DIETS FOR ATLANTIC SALMON Salmo salar

Brian C. Small*, Jeongwhui Hong, and Jose Ortiz

 

 University of Idaho, Aquaculture Research Institute,

 Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station

 3059F National Fish Hatchery Road, Hagerman, Idaho 83332, USA

 Email: bcsmall@uidaho.edu

 



A co-product from ethanol industry, distillers dried grains with soluble (DDGS) is low in lysine and contains moderate crude protein (28 - 32%) and relatively high fiber, thus limiting the inclusion level of DDGS in Atlantic salmon feed. However, through applying advanced processing techniques, DDGS can be improved to yield a corn fermented protein with solubles (CFPS) which is high in protein content. ProCap Gold (Marquis Grain Inc.) is one such product and has a protein content of 48%. Recently, our research group evaluated ProCap Gold as a complete replacer of soybean meal in the practical diet of Atlantic salmon. In that study, Atlantic salmon fed a diet replacing 100% of the soybean meal (22% of the diet) were observed to maintain maximal performance levels. From that study, came the hypothesis for the current study, that ProCap Gold can replace 100% of the fishmeal in a practical Atlantic salmon diet. Therefore, a 12-week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate this CFPS as a fishmeal (FM) replacer in the practical diets for Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) and the subsequent effects on growth, feed efficiency, intestinal morphology, and health performance. A 40% menhaden fishmeal diet was used as the Control diet, then, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of FM in the Control diet formulation was replaced with CFPS for diet groups Diet-2, Diet-3, Diet-4 and Diet-5, respectively. This resulted in Diet 5 containing no FM and 40% CFPS. All experimental diets were fed to satiation, twice daily to quadruplicate groups of Atlantic salmon juveniles (initial weight 12 g). After the feeding trial, final weight, specific growth rate, weight gain and survival were not significantly different among the treatment groups; however, feed conversion ratio was higher (P<0.05) for fish fed Diet 5. Additionally, the inclusion of CFPS did not affect hepatosomatic index and condition factor (P>0.05). A blood metabolic panel indicated no differences among treatment groups, and hematocrit and total hemoglobin were also similar (P>0.05). Effects of graded levels of CFPS on oxidative stress and intestinal histomorphology will be discussed. Taken as a whole, these results demonstrate that ProCap Gold CFPS can be used as an effective fishmeal replacement.