The price of fish oil has reached a historical peak due to a consistent downward production trend, and therefore, the search for sustainable alternative sources has received great attention. This research was conducted to evaluate dietary micro-algae, Schizochytrium sp. (SC) as fish oil (FO) replacer in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. In the first trial, apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC) was 92.4% for dry matter, 91.4% for crude protein, and 94.2% for crude lipid in rainbow trout. In the second trial, six diets were formulated to replace FO at 0% (CON), 20% (T20), 40% (T40), 60% (T60), 80% (T80), and 100% (T100) with SC in the rainbow trout (3.0 ± 0.4 g, mean ± SD) diet. After eight weeks’ feeding trial, weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), and feed efficiency (FE) of fish fed the T20 diet were significantly higher than those of fish fed other diets (p < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in these parameters among those of fish fed CON, T40, T60, and T80 diets. Lysozyme activity of fish fed the T20 diet was significantly higher than those of fish fed other experimental diets (p < 0.05). After 10 days of disease challenge testing with pathogenic bacteria (Lactococcus garvieae 1 × 108 CFU/mL), the cumulative survival rate of fish fed the T20 diet was significantly higher than those of fish fed the CON, T80, and T100 diets. Therefore, these results suggest dietary microalgae SC is well-digested and could replace up to 80% of fish oil in the diet of rainbow trout without negative effects on growth and immune responses.
Keywords: algae oil; digestibility; fatty acids; growth; sustainability; trout feed.