EFFECT OF DIFFERENT DIETARY PROTEIN TO ENERGY RATIOS (PIE) ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND BODY COMPOSITION OF FARMED PERSIAN STURGEON (ACIPENSER PERSICUS)

To improve Persian sturgeon nutrition and determine its nutritional requirements, a growth trial was conducted to measure optimum dietary protein to energy ratio in Persian sturgeon sub-yearlings. Four diets: H (p/E=21.33mg/kJ), N (P/E=20.24mg/kJ), L (P/E=19.22 mg/kJ) and M (p/E=18.26mg/kJ)were used in the experiment. Triplicate groups of fish were kept in 500L fiberglass tanks under homogenous culture conditions (dissolved oxygen, light and water flow rate) and fed with the experimental diets. Fish were fed to satiation four times per day during 130 days of experiment when the average water temperature and dissolved oxygen were 12.82±1.48°C and 9.55±0.18mg/l respectively. Fish in all treatments grew fast and efficiently utilized the diets. Growth rate, FE, OR, SGR and PER increased with decreasing dietary protein to energy ratios. A higher growth was observed in the fishes fed with lower PIE ratios. Food intake and fatness coefficient increased with increasing dietary energy and decreasing PIE ratios. There were no significant differences in feeding efficiency (FE) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) in fish fed with diet N (high carbohydrate and low lipid content) and diet L (low carbohydrate and high lipid content). We conclude that the Persian sturgeon is able to use lipids and carbohydrates as non-protein sources of energy. The results of the present study demonstrated that the protein content and PIE ratio for optimum growth and efficient protein utilization in Persian sturgeon is 40% and 18.3-19.2mg protein/kJ energy, respectively.