Apparent digestibility coefficient of nutrients from shrimp,mussel, diatom and seaweed by juvenile Holothuria scabra Jaeger

The ability of Holothuria scabra to digest nutrients, such as organic matter (OM), protein and carbohydrate from animal and plant feed ingredients was investigated. Four test feeds prepared by mixing sand with single ingredients from animal sources (shrimp and mussel) and plant sources (diatom and seaweed) were fed to H. scabra to estimate apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC). The total assimilated nutrient (TAN) increased with ADC, whereas ingestion rate (IR) varied slightly among the feeds suggesting that ADC might be a good indicator of nutrient availability to H. scabra. The ADC_OM of shrimp and mussel was significantly higher than that diatom and seaweed: 86.2%, 77.1%, 55.1% and 32.3% respectively. ADC_protein was similar for shrimp (88.7%), mussel (84.8%) and diatom (75.2%), but significantly lower in seaweed (34.4%). ADC_carbohydrate was similar in mussel (58.5%) and diatom (58.3%) as well as in seaweed (31.6) and shrimp (28.0%). ADC_protein was relatively higher than ADC_carbohydrate suggesting that H. scabra generally digests more protein than carbohydrate. Furthermore, results indicated that nutrients from animal‐based feeds are more efficiently digested by H. scabra; thus, animal ingredients rich in easily digestible protein could potentially provide an efficiently balanced diet for H. scabra fed with diatom containing high easily digestible carbohydrate.