A Note on Amino Acids Essential for Growth of Young Carp

Abstract

Young carp, Cyprinus carpio, were found to grow to some extent on an amino acid test diet neutralized with NaOH, but only a little on a diet not neutralized. Thirty five fish were grouped in each aquarium and fed ad libitum the test diet adjusted to pH 6.5-6.7 for a period of 6 weeks. The fish fed diets deficient in each of alanine, aspartic acid, cystine, glutamic acid, glycine, proline, tyrosine and serine grew as well as those fed the complete diet. The fish fed diets deficient in each of arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine failed to grow until the deleted amino acid was returned to the ration. It was thus postulated that carp require the same ten kinds of amino acid reported to be essential for other fishes.