World Aquaculture 2023

May 29 - June 1, 2023

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

NUTRITION BASED STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE YELLOWTAIL KINGFISH Seriola lalandi AQUACULTURE INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA

Igor Pirozzi*, Marina Rubio Benito, Caroline Candebat, Basseer Codabaccus, Chinh T.M. Dam, Abigail Elizur, Barney Hines, Angela Liu, Michael Salini, Jesmond Sammut, Cedric Simon, Richard Smullen, Luke  Vandenberg, Tomer Ventura, Mark Booth

NSW Department of Primary Industries. Port Stephens Fisheries Institute. Taylors Beach Rd, Taylors Beach NSW 2316. Australia

Igor.pirozzi@dpi.nsw.gov.au

 



Yellowtail Kingfish (YTK; Seriola lalandi) aquaculture in Australia is considered an emerging industry that presents the most significant potential for growth of the developing aquaculture industries, with some estimates predicting that Australian production of YTK could increase to 34,000 tonnes worth $440 million over the next 10 years. However to grow the industry key bottlenecks still remain particularly with regard to nutrition, feeds and feeding strategies. Here we present a synopsis of some of the key research findings of a multi-year collaborative R&D program investigating the nutritional requirements, diet development, and feeding strategies for YTK. Key outcomes include quantifying the requirements for the essential nutrients such as choline, taurine, methionine and cysteine, the comprehensive assessment of a suite of dietary raw materials to facilitate cost effective feed formulations, successfully reducing fishmeal in diets by over 70%, refining bioenergetic growth models to improve predictive accuracy and identifying feeding strategies to reduce FCR’s and improve cost benefits. Taken overall, the application of the programs results will help towards the development of more cost effective, sustainable feeds and feed management strategies ultimately improving farm productivity by reducing operating costs and improving sustainability.