Amino acid requirements of lambari-do-rabo-amarelo based on whole body and muscle composition

Abstract

Lambari is a Brazilian freshwater fish with great interest for aquaculture, but few studies were performed on its nutrition. The objective of this work was to determine amino acid composition of whole body and muscle tissue of lambari and to estimate essential amino acids (EAA) requirements based on the average requirements of other omnivorous fish species and on whole body and/or muscle of lambari. Firstly, some lambaris were sampled in a small reservoir for whole body and muscle composition determination. Also, the A/E ratio (essential amino acid/total essential amino acids) for each tissue was calculated, which based the estimation of the EAA requirements through formula: lambari dietary EAA requirement = [(content of an individual EAA in lambari whole body or muscle tissue) í­"” (average total EAA requirements among channel catfish, Nile tilapia, common carp, jundiá and pacu)] / (total EAA lambari whole body and/or muscle tissue). In general, muscular tissue showed high EAA and less non-essential amino acid contents in relation to whole body tissue (p<0,05). The EAA requirements estimated for lambari are similar to those of other fishes, which may be employed, with moderate accuracy, to formulate balanced diets until new researches, carried out through others techniques as dose-response, will be published.