Nutritional Quality of Fish Meals Made from By-Products of the Alaska Fishing Industry in Diets for Pacific White Shrimp(Litopenaeus vannamei)

The nutritional quality of ten commercially available white fish meals made from by-products of the Alaska fish processing industry (primarily pollock) was determined. Pelleted feeds were manufactured containing these meals in complete replacement of a low-temperature processed Norwegian fish meal (control). These feeds were fed to triplicate tanks of Pacific white shrimp at the facilities of the Oceanic Institute for a period of ten weeks. At the end of the trial, the growth, feed conversion ratio and survival data were subjected to analysis of variance procedures. The final weight of the shrimp was more than ten times the initial and mean survival was 97%. There were no significant differences in performance parameters among the treatments. It is concluded that the nutritional quality of Alaska white fish meals is equivalent to the highest standard in the industry and are of suitable quality for inclusion in commercial shrimp feeds.