Project Number: 1915-31000-003-04
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Oct 01, 2008
End Date: Aug 31, 2011

Objective:
1) Develop a series of protein blends to replace fish meal based upon nutritional and economic considerations using traditional and innovative protein concentrates. 2) Determine fish meal replacement value of specific protein blends of traditional and innovative protein concentrates in the diet of Atlantic salmon. 3) Estimate phenotypic and genetic sources of variation and genotype x diet interaction for diet utilization in families from two stocks of Atlantic salmon, evaluated by measuring fish growth performance, feed efficiency and fillet quality. The best performing low fish meal diets determined from objective 2 will be evaluate in two separate studies.

Approach:
Reducing inputs from marine resources into proposed off-shore aquaculture systems is absolutely essential for the successful acceptance and implementation of off-shore aquaculture in the USA. Atlantic salmon are themselves a major aquaculture species, but they also serve as a surrogate species for other marine piscivorous fish species that are likely candidates for off-shore aquaculture development. Hence, the results of this project will be directly applicable to other high-value marine fish species being considered as candidate species for off-shore aquaculture.