Dietary l -lysine requirement of fingerling stinging catfish,Heteropneustes fossilis(Bloch) for optimizing growth, feed conversion, protein and lysine deposition

Dietary lysine requirement of fingerling Heteropneustes fossilis (6.96 ± 0.05 g) was quantified by conducting 12-week feeding trial in a flow-through system at 28°C. Casein–gelatin based isonitrogenous (38% CP) and isocaloric (14.7 kJ g−1 DE) amino acid test diets with six levels of dietary lysine (1.5%, 1.75%, 2.0%, 2.25%, 2.5%, 3.0% dry diet) were fed to apparent satiation in triplicates. Broken-line and second-degree polynomial regression analyses at 95% plateau of absolute weight gain (AWG; g fish−1), feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein deposition (PD; g fish−1) and lysine deposition (LD; g fish−1) exhibited lysine requirement between 2.0% to 2.3% of the dry diet, corresponding to 5.3–6.1% protein.