Dietary threonine requirement of juvenile Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus

An 8-week feeding trial was conducted to determine the dietary threonine requirement of juvenile Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus. Six isonitrogenous and isoenergetic diets were formulated to contain graded levels of threonine, 0.73, 0.91, 1.14, 1.31, 1.56 and 1.72 % of dry weight, respectively. Each diet was randomly assigned to triplicate groups of 25 juvenile fish (2.97 +/- A 0.02 g), which were fed three times daily (8:30, 12:30 and 17:00) to apparent satiation. By the end of the feeding trial, weight gain (WG) was found to have increased with increasing dietary threonine levels up to 1.31 %, but WG then decreased in fish fed higher dietary threonine concentrations. Threonine concentration had no significant impact on survival, body composition or the measured haematological and immune parameters. There were, for example, no significant differences in serum lysozyme activity, superoxide dismutase activity, immune globulin M concentration and C-reactive protein content among dietary treatments. Using quadratic regression analysis of WG data, the optimal dietary threonine inclusion for juvenile tilapia was estimated to be 1.33 % of the diet (4.74 % of dietary protein).