Almost total replacement of fish meal by plant protein sources in the diet of a marine teleost, the European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax

Five practical diets in which the supply of protein from fish meal was decreased gradually from 100% to about 2% and replaced by plant protein sources were formulated. European seabass weighing about 190 g were fed these diets for 12 weeks at a water temperature of 22 °C. Feed was dispensed using automatic self-feeders and voluntary feed intake (VFI) was closely monitored. We did not find any significant difference among diets in the apparent digestibility coefficients (ADC) of dry matter (80–82%), protein (94–96%), energy (88–92%) or phosphorus (49–58%). Replacement of fish meal by plant protein ingredients did not influence VFI. All groups had very good growth rates (DGI above 1.3%/day) and there were no significant differences in growth rate, feed efficiency or in daily nitrogen gains among groups. There was, however, a slight increase in fat deposition in fish fed diets with plant protein sources. Ammonia nitrogen and soluble phosphorus excretion rates were measured. Nitrogen and phosphorus balance studies indicated that fish meal replacement by plant ingredients led to a slight increase in nitrogen losses (from 83 to 103 g N/kg weight gain) but led to a significant reduction in total phosphorus losses (from 13 to 5 g P/kg weight gain). These results combined with the remarkable acceptability of diets containing high levels of plant protein ingredients with identical growth performances of European seabass show clearly that dietary fish meal levels can be considerably reduced without any adverse consequence in terms of somatic growth or nitrogen utilisation.