Cobia (Rachycentron canadum) is a warmwater, carnivorous marine finfish, and the only member of the Rachycentridae family. This species is widely known for its favorable aquaculture characteristics, particularly its rapid growth. Despite considerable research effort focused on understanding their nutritional demands, the development of industrially compounded aquafeeds specifically formulated to fully satisfy the nutritional demands of cobia lags behind that for other commercially farmed fish species like barramundi and others. 

Commercial production of cobia often still relies on the use of natural forage/trash fish as feed inputs because existing aquafeed formulations are deemed inadequate, unaffordable, or both. The availability of a cost-effective grow-out feed formulation is an ongoing bottleneck for the expansion of cobia aquaculture.

To help address this constraint and facilitate technology transfer to feed manufacturers interested in developing specific formulations for cobia, here we summarize the findings of several lipid nutrition projects conducted by researchers at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (USA) in collaboration with the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center (Hampton, Va., USA). 

Source: Global Aquaculture Advocate // Read Article