Dietary taurine supplementation enhances growth and nutrient digestibility in giant grouper Epinephelus lanceolatus fed a diet with soybean meal
Yu‐Hung Lin, Ruo‐Mei Lu
Abstract
In the study, we evaluated the effects of dietary taurine supplementation on growth, tissue taurine concentrations, and nutrient digestibility in the giant grouper, Epinephelus lanceolatus, fed a diet containing soybean meal. The basal diet containing soybean meal (replacing 40 % of fish meal protein) was supplemented with taurine at 0 (control), 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 1 g/kg of the diet. An all-fish-meal diet was also included for comparison. In total, six experimental diets were each fed to triplicate groups of grouper (with an initial weight of 14.42 ± 0.07 g) in a recirculating rearing system for 8 wks. Weight gain was the highest in fish fed the all-fish-meal diet, followed by fish fed the diet with 1 g/kg taurine, and the lowest was in fish fed the diets with 0 and 0.1 g/kg taurine. Fish fed the all-fish-meal diet and the diet with 1 g/kg taurine had the highest muscle taurine concentrations, followed by the 0.5 g/kg taurine group, with the lowest in the ≤0.3 g/kg taurine groups. All of the taurine-supplemented groups (0.1–1 g/kg taurine) had higher apparent dry matter and lipid digestibility than fish fed the control diet. Results indicated that 1 g/kg of taurine supplementation in the diet improved growth and nutrient digestibility in giant grouper when the diet contained a high level of soybean meal.