Optimal dietary methionine + cystine requirement for finishing lambari, Astyanax altiparanae (Garutti and Britski, 2000)

A 95‐day feeding trial was conducted to quantify the methionine + cystine requirement for finishing lambari, Astyanax altiparanae (6.10 ± 0.11 g). Six extruded isoproteic (310.14 g/kg crude protein) and isoenergetic (19.76 MJ/kg gross energy) diets were prepared to contain 6.71, 8.31, 11.31, 13.12, 15.59 and 19.74 g/kg dry diet of methionine + cystine. Quadruplicate groups of female lambari were randomly assigned to 24 aquaria (70 L each) and fed to apparent satiety six times daily. The methionine + cystine requirement was determined by quadratic regression analysis of growth performance, whole body composition, muscle development, aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity against dietary methionine + cystine concentrations, at 5% significance. Fish fed 6.71–11.31 g/kg dry diet of methionine + cystine showed increased weight gain, per cent weight gain, specific growth rate and protein efficiency ratio. There were no significant differences in whole body composition, muscle growth and activity of AST and ALT in fish fed the dietary treatments. In conclusion, according to the second‐order polynomial analysis of weight gain, the optimum dietary methionine + cystine requirements for finishing lambari were estimated to be 13.66 g/kg dry diet (4.40% dietary protein).