Evaluation of apparent digestibility coefficient of energy of various vegetable feed ingredients in Florida pompano, Trachinotus carolinus

The apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC) of energy of various vegetable feed ingredients with relatively high levels of carbohydrate was determined for Florida pompano, Trachinotus carolinus. A practical fish meal and soybean meal based reference diet was formulated to contain 54% protein, 11% lipid, and 1% chromic oxide. Using the 70:30 replacement strategy seven test diets were produced that included corn grain, sorghum grain, whole wheat flour, wheat bran, wheat middlings, full fat rice bran, and defatted rice bran. Each of the diets were offered to juvenile pompano (111.6 g mean weight) maintained in a recirculation system. After one week of conditioning to the diets, fecal samples were obtained by manually stripping the fish. Chromium content and gross energy of the diets and fecal samples was then determined and digestibility coefficients calculated. The ADC of energy of the evaluated feedstuffs showed a wide variation, ranging from 8.2% for wheat middlings, to 55.4% for whole wheat flour. Knowing the contribution of common vegetable feed ingredients to the digestible energy content of production diets is critical to achieve cost-effective formulations that may lead to a reduction in the overall feeding cost of Florida pompano production, providing useful information to improve feed formulations for this species.