Evaluation of corn distillers dried grains with solubles and brewers yeast in diets for channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus (Rafinesque)

A study was conducted to examine the use of distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), ethanol extracted DDGS (EDDGS), and brewers yeast in channel cat¢sh, Ictalurus punctatus, diets.Diets containing these ingredients were compared with all-plant and ¢sh meal control diets.Juvenile channel cat¢sh (initial weight: 9.1 Æ 0.2 g ¢sh À 1 ) were stocked in £ow-through aquaria and fed one of six practical diets for 8 weeks.Diets containing1% brewers yeast or 30% DDGS supported the same level of growth and feed e⁄ciency ratio (FER) as the diet containing 5% ¢sh meal.Ethanol extraction e¡ectively removed most of the fat and yellow pigments in DDGS.The diet containing 30% EDDGS resulted in signi¢cantly lower growth and FER compared with the diet containing DDGS.However, the weight gain of ¢sh fed the EDDGS diet was intermediate compared with ¢sh fed the all-plant control, ¢sh meal control, and 1% and 2% brewers yeast diets.The EDDGS could potentially be used at high levels as a substitution for soybean meal without causing yellow pigment deposition in cat¢sh £esh, provided that the ethanol extraction process is proven economical.Brewers yeast, used at 1^2% of the diet, appears to be e¡ective at improving weight gain and FER of channel cat¢sh over the all-plant diet.