Optimal Feeding Frequency for Juvenile Korean Rockfish Sebastes schlegeli Fed Commercial Diet at Two Different Water Temperatures

We conducted two feeding trials to investigate the optimal feeding frequency of juvenile Korean rockfish Sebastes schlegeli fed a commercial diet of expanded pellets containing 47.2% crude protein, 9.2% crude lipid, and 14.5% ash at two different water temperatures. In the first experiment, triplicate groups of 20 fish with an average weight of 2 g were fed an equal amount of diet (5.97% based on body weight) at one of six feeding frequencies (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, or 9 meals/day) for four weeks at $17.5^{\circ}C$. After four weeks, we measured weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR), feeding efficiency (FE), and protein efficiency ratio (PER). Fish fed diet five meals/day grew significantly better than those fed nine meals/day. The second experiment used identical experimental conditions and feeding regions, except the food ration was slightly less (5.92% based on body weight) and the water temperature was increased to $20^{\circ}C$. After four weeks, we again measured WG, SGR, FE and PER. Fish fed seven meals/day grew significantly faster than those fed 2, 3, 4, or 9 meals/day. Whole-body protein levels in fish fed three meals/day was higher than those fed four meals/day in $17.5^{\circ}C$ water, but whole-body lipids in the fish fed four meals/day was higher than those fed two meals/day in $20^{\circ}C$ water. A second-order polynomial analysis based on WG suggested the optimal feeding frequency for juvenile Korean rockfish was five meals/day at $17.5^{\circ}C$ and six meals/day at $20^{\circ}C$, indicating that fish reared in higher water temperature require higher feeding frequencies.

수온별 조피볼락(Sebastes schlegeli) 치어의 배합사료 적정 공급횟수