The snooks Centropomus parallelus are fishes with high commercial value and social and economic importance. They have potencial to be used in aquaculture, as they accept to be confined and to be fed with ration. The knowledge of the nutritional requeriments of the snook is basic to produce especific ration. Centropomus parallelus fed soybean meal, oat meal and rice meal, tested as ration ingredients with 0.5% to chromium oxide (Cr2O3), as a external marker, were used to determine the digestibility of some ingredients used in fish ration. The experimental methodology was composed by four cylinder-conical tanks, with 60 L of volume each, with ten fishes, connected to two interchanged biological filter with 100 L of volume. The bottom of the tanks was used for the excrement collection, and the samples collected were frozen and, after, dried in stove at 55.0ºC for analyses. The apparent digestibility values of dry matter, crude protein and gross energy in the ration were: soybean meal, 78.74, 90.96, and 82.66%; oat, 48.06, 81.10%, and 60.25%; rice meal, 59.34, 86.98, and 69.06%; dry matter digestibility, crude protein digestibility and gross energy digestibility of ingredients were: soybean meal, 65.38%, 36.04%, 3497 kcal/kg; oat, 21.36%, 9.15%, and 4197 kcal/kg; rice meal, 46.41%, 6.57%, and 3434 kcal/kg.
aquaculture; digestibility; nutrition; snook
