Utilization of Bluegill Meal Lepomis macrochirus as a Replacement of Fishmeal in the Diet of Juvenile Mandarin Fish Siniperca scherzeri

A feeding trial was carried out to assess the effect of partially replacing fish meal by bluegill meal (BM) in diets for mandarin fish Siniperca scherzeri. Four experimental groups were fed with a FM(fish meal)-based diet without BM (BM0), three diets with 10% (BM10), 20% (BM20) and 30% (BM30) of FM substitution with BM. Triplicate groups of fish (average weight of 6.9 g) were fed one of the four experimental diets twice daily for 8 weeks. At the end of the feeding trial, survival of mandarin fish was above 86.7% and not affected by BM levels (P>0.05). Weight gain and feed efficiency were not significantly affected by dietary BM levels (P>0.05). No significant differences were observed in the contents of moisture, crude protein, crude lipid and ash of the whole body in juvenile mandarin fish fed the experimental diets (P>0.05). These results indicate that BM has potential as alternative to FM in practical diets for juvenile mandarin fish and can be used substitute for fish meal up to 30% in diet.