Digestible energy and inclusion of crude glycerin in diets for curimbatá juveniles

Abstract

The curimbatá is an important fishery resource, however, little is known about its nutritional requirements. This work aimed to determine the apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC) and the effect of the inclusion of crude glycerin (CG) in the diet for curimbatá (Prochilodus lineatus) juveniles. Feces were collected from fish fed with reference diet based on ingredients of plant origin and with a test diet, having the inert marker chromium (III) oxide (0.1%). In the growth experiment, 750 juveniles (18.71 ± 2.70 g) were used in a completely randomized design, with six treatments (diets containing 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20% CG) and five repetitions, for 64 days. For P. lineatus, CG presented ADC of 0.76 for crude energy and digestible energy of 2,850.99 kcal kg^-1 of the diet. The different levels of inclusion affected the final weight (FW), feed conversion rate (FCR), specific growth rate (SGR), and weight gain (WG), in addition to blood levels of glucose and triglycerides. Regression analysis showed a negative linear effect of the diets on FW, SGR, and WG, and a positive linear effect on FCR. Crude glycerin can be used as an energy source and its inclusion in 4% of the diet improves the productive performance of curimbatá.