Comparison of Growth and Gastric Evacuation of Aquacultured Florida Pompano Trachinotus carolinus Raised on Two Feed Types

We investigated the growth and gastric evacuation of aquacultured juvenile Florida pompano fed two different diets to direct production of young life stages. Pompano were fed Otohime EP2 or NOAA’s proprietary Montlake meal 2X or 4X per day over a weight gain of 10-40g, with fish group-weighed once weekly, to determine feed frequency, feed conversion ratio, and feed efficiency. Gastric evacuation experiments were conducted at 20, 25 and 30C. Fish were fasted for 48 hours prior to experiments, then fed diets of NOAA Montlake meal and Otohime EP2 pellets until satiation. Three fish were randomly sampled from the population at 60 minute intervals then euthanized in MS-222, weighed (g), and measured (SL), frozen (-10°C) immediately, and stored for a period of 24-48h prior to dissections. Fish were thawed and stomach contents were emptied, patted dry, and weighed. Linear and nonlinear models of growth and evacuation were fitted separately to the respective data using maximum likelihood and best fitting models were selected via Akaike’s Information Criterion using an information theoretic approach. The gradual evacuation of Montlake meal, combined with faster growth of fish fed this diet, suggest that NOAA’s proprietary feed may be a superior diet for aquaculture for this species.