Nutrition of Salmonoid Fishes

Abstract

Sockeye salmon fingerlings were adapted to and fed a test ration containing 17 L-amino acids as the nitrogen source. Specific amino acid-deficient diets were prepared by deleting one amino acid from the basal ration and replacing it with α-cellulose flour. Growth with these diets was compared with that obtained with the basal ration. On the basis of the results, sockeye salmon fingerlings required arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine for normal growth. No partial biosynthesis of any of these amino acids was observed. In contrast, alanine, aspartic acid, cystine, glutamic acid, proline and tyrosine were not required for growth and may be considered dispensable under the experimental conditions used. By inspection hydroxyproline and serine can also be classified dispensable.