Dietary phosphorus requirement of juvenile black seabream, Sparus macrocephalus

A growth trial was conducted to estimate the optimum requirement of dietary available phosphorus (P) for black seabream (Sparus macrocephalus) in indoor net cages (1.5×1.0×1.0 m). Triplicate groups of black seabream (11.45±0.02 g) were fed diets containing graded levels (0.18, 0.36, 0.54, 0.72, 0.89 and 1.07%) of available P to satiation for 8 weeks. The basal diet (diet 1), containing 0.18% available P, was supplemented with graded levels of monosodium phosphate (NaH2PO4 2H2O) to formulate five experimental diets. The fish were fed twice daily (08:00 h and 16:00 h) and reared in seawater (salinity, 26–29 g l−1) at a temperature of 28±1 °C. Dissolved oxygen during the experiment was above 5 mg l−1. The specific growth rate (SGR), weight gain (WG), feed efficiency (FE) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) were all significantly improved by dietary phosphorus up to 0.54% (P