Insect Meal as a Partial Replacement for Fish Meal in a Formulated Diet for Perch Perca fluviatilis

Abstract

The growing importance of aquaculture products for human health also raises the question of product sustainability and decreasing its costs. Insects are considered as novel feed ingredients and source of proteins. In this study, a twelve-week feeding trial with replacement of 25% fishmeal by a mixture of house cricket (Acheta domesticus) and superworm (Zophobas morio) in the fish feed was conducted with perch (Perca fluviatilis). There were no significant differences in this feeding trial, regarding survival, but decreased fish growth and increased feed conversion between the control and the experimental fed groups. Hepatic cytochrome P450 (CYP1A and CYP3A-like) activity and fatty acid (FA) composition were assessed in perch also. No significant effects were observed on cytochrome P450 activity associated with presence of toxic compounds in fish. Feeding with insect pellets resulted in significant increasing of linoleic FA and an increase of the total content of n-6 FA in fish fillets, compared to the fish fillets from control group. However, changes in FA composition were only minor and did not affect the nutritional value of the fish with insect-based diet for human consumption. Further evaluation should be conducted with different ratios or different insect species.