The investigation possibilities of using whiting meal instead of pelagic fish meal in Russian sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedth brandt, 1833) diet

Abstract

This study was carried out to determine the possibilities of using whiting meal on growth performance and body composition of Russian sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii). the fish with an average weight of 1.475+04.75 g were fed with pelagic fish meal for 90 days with four different groups of experimental diets containing control group feed (0%) (WM) and whiting meal feed (WM) (10%, 20 and 30%). At the end of the experiment, WM 20 group had the highest weight gain with 2.183 12.36 g in average. This group was followed by WM 10 with 2.176 15.53 g, WM 30 with 2.065+18.60 g and control group (WM 0) with 2.109+18.96 g. the differences between the WM 20 group and the other groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05) in terms of weight gain, feed conversion ratio and Protein efficiency ratio and were similar in feed efficiency and specific growth rates. At the end of this research, it was found that the use of 20% of whiting meal in sturgeon fish feed brings significant contribution to fish growth considering evaluation criteria of growth performance.