The potential for aquaculture in the carnivorous yellowtail snapper, Ocyurus chrysurus , is acknowledged. However, there is a research gap in studying the digestibility of ingredients necessary for formulating well-balanced diets for this species. The pH-stat technique was employed to assess the in vitro protein digestibility of fishmeal (FM), poultry by-product meal (PBM), poultry meal (PM), protiblend (PROT), canola meal (CM), soybean meal (SBM), and wheat gluten (WG). In the in vivo digestibility evaluation, test diets were formulated with a 70:30 ratio of the reference diet and the test ingredients. FM, PBM, and PM demonstrated the highest degree of hydrolysis (DH) in terms of in vitro digestibility. Conversely, PBM showed the lowest apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC) for protein in the in vivo digestibility test. Meanwhile, FM, PM, and CM exhibited higher protein digestibility values. A beta regression analysis between ADC protein, DH, and ash content of the ingredients revealed a strong correlation. The study results suggest that yellowtail snapper effectively digested and absorbed FM, PM, and CM ingredients, particularly those with lower ash content.
*Corresponding author: mggc@ciencias.unam.mx