Developing Nutritional Models for Aquaculture: Integrating Existing Knowledge, Addressing Real Issues, and Setting Directions for Research

Abstract

The aquaculture industry is a complex sector that offers challenges largely unknown to other traditional livestock
agriculture operations. Hundreds of species are cultivated on a commercial scale using a wide variety of production
systems. Rearing animals in an aquatic environment greatly complicates monitoring of growth, standing biomass,
feed delivery, and waste outputs. Feed delivered but not consumed by the animals cannot be recovered or even
appropriately quantified. The nutritional composition of fish feeds varies considerably which complicates
comparison of feed efficiency values amongst operations and even, to some extent, between production cycles.
Wastes produced by fish culture operations are often difficult to contain and may, potentially, contribute to
environmental degradation of fragile aquatic ecosystems.