Aquaculture 2025

March 6 - 10, 2025

New Orleans, Louisiana USA

PRODUCTION PERFORMANCE AND DISEASE RESISTANCE OF CHANNEL CATFISH JUVENILES Ictalurus punctatus FED DIETS CONTAINING DIFFERENT LIPID SOURCES

André D. Nobre, Larissa S. da Cunha, Ana Beatriz de S. Farias, Crystal L. Conde, Sara U.

Cardoso, Jing Huang, J. Grant Reifers, Penelope M. Goodman, Matt J. Griffin, Ligia U.

Gonçalves, and *Fernando Y. Yamamoto

Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center

Mississippi State University

Stoneville, MS 38776

nobreandre00@gmail.com and larissasalgado2013@gmail.com



Alternatives lipid ingredients can impact the growth performance and disease resistance in farmed

fish. Vegetable oils and terrestrial animal fats have been commonly used to manufacture aquafeeds

and they can heavily impact the physiological and immune responses of farmed fish. On the other

hand, single cell ingredient, Schizochytrium sp. meal can be a sustainable alternative to fish oil

due to its high content of docosahexaenoic acid.

Five experimental diets (catfish oil, soybean oil, lard, menhaden oil, and Schizochytrium sp. meal) were formulated to be isonitrogenous

(36%) and isolipidic (7.8%). Six hundred channel catfish (initial weight ~5 g) were randomly distributed across 20 aquaria (110 L,

30 fish/tank, n=4) and fed the experimental

diets to apparent satiation for 10 weeks. The

tanks operated as a recirculating aquaculture

system and the dietary treatments were

assigned in a completely randomized design.

On the last day of the feeding trial, fish were

weighed to calculate production performance

and sampled for condition indices and

hematology. For the bacterial challenge, the

remaining fish were transferred to and

acclimated in fiber glass tanks (22 L) operating

as a flow through system and challenged with

an LD50 of Edwardsiella ictaluri through

immersion (6.2×106 CFU/mL). Data were

subjected to analysis of variance in one-way

ANOVA, post-hoc testing was performed

using Tukey’s test. Fish grew on average

832.6% when compared to the initial weight.

There were no significant differences in the

production performance variables, except for

feed efficiency (P = 0.023), in which the

menhaden treatment was more efficient

compared to the lard treatment. However, fish

fed diets containing lard had significantly

higher survival after the bacterial challenge

when compared to the fish fed diets

supplemented with soybean oil (Figure 1). It

can be concluded that terrestrial animal fat

reduced channel catfish feed efficiency;

however, it did increase their resistance against

Edwardsiella ictaluri.