Dietary composition manipulation to enhance the performance of juvenile barramundi (Lates calcarifer Bloch) reared in cool water

Barramundi Lates calcarifer reared in cool water (20–22°C) grow slowly and feed is used poorly compared with fish in warm water (28–32°C). Two comparative slaughter growth assays were carried out with juvenile barramundi to see if increasing the digestible energy (DE) and/or the n‐3 highly unsaturated fatty acid (n‐3 HUFA) content of the feed would improve growth of fish raised in cool water. Increasing the DE content of the feed from 15 to 17 or 19 MJ kg−1 while maintaining a constant protein to energy ratio in Experiment 1 brought about significant improvements in feed conversion ratio (FCR) (from 2.01 to 1.19) and daily growth coefficient (DGC; from 0.69 to 1.08%/day) for fish at 20°C. For fish at 29°C, improvements, while significant, were of a lesser magnitude: from 1.32 to 0.97 for FCR and from 3.24 to 3.65%/day for DGC. Increasing the absolute amount of dietary n‐3 HUFA, expressed as the sum of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic fatty acids, from 0.5% to 2.0% in Experiment 2 improved DGC linearly and FCR curvilinearly for fish at 29°C whereas at 20°C, DGC was not affected while FCR improved slightly (from 1.83 to 1.68). Feed conversion ratio was optimized with a dietary n‐3 HUFA of about 1.5%. Providing barramundi with a feed that is high in DE (viz 19 MJ kg−1) and a digestible protein to DE ratio of 22.5 g MJ−1 is a practical strategy for improving the productivity of barramundi cultured in cool water whereas increasing dietary n‐3 HUFA conferred very little additional benefit.