| Abstract: | Florida pompano Trachinotus carolinus is an important species in which the essentiality of taurine has been demonstrated, yet a quantitative requirement has not been estimated. Two experiments were conducted where a combined twelve diets were formulated with graded levels of taurine (ranging 1.6–41.6 g/kg dry matter) and fed to juvenile pompano (initial weight 7.73 and 4.37 g in trial 1 and 2, respectively). Dose responses were observed in terms of growth, feed efficiency and whole‐body taurine content, but there was no effect on survival. Several regression models were evaluated to determine the most appropriate one to draw conclusions from. A 4‐parameter saturation kinetic model was selected to model feed efficiency, while a 5‐parameter saturation kinetic model fitted the growth data (as thermal‐unit growth coefficient, TGC). A broken‐quadratic model served to estimate a breaking point in the whole‐body taurine content, although it also showed that whole‐body taurine kept increasing even at dietary levels in far excess of the requirement. The dietary taurine requirement was estimated at 2.5 g/kg (2.0–3.3 g/kg, 95% CI, dry matter basis) based on feed efficiency, while TGC was maximized at levels between 4.9 and 31.4 g/kg dietary taurine. |
