Amino Acid Nutrition of Fish Larvae

This research aimed at establishing the dietary requirements of some essential amino acids in diets for fish larvae. Protein is one of the major nutrients in fish diets. In order to optimise protein utilization, and reduce the prices of fish feeds, it is necessary to know what are the amino acid requirements of fish. By optimising the amino acid profile of a diet, the total amount of protein in the diet may be reduced, and the diets become more cost effective. Amino acid requirements have been studied in juvenile and young fish. However, the study of amino acid requirements in fish larvae presents a number of problems: larvae must ingest the microdiets; the small size of these diets highly increases the leaching of soluble nutrients. Small larvae also need live food in their diets, and this makes more difficult to estimate the amino acid requirements in larval diets. These studies were the first attempt to establish amino acid requirements in marine fish larvae, setting up the methods for further research.