The present work was developed in order to determine the protein and energy apparent digestibility coefficients of the principal ingredients used in the pintado juvenile diets. Six hundred juveniles with initial weight and total length means of 9.80 ± 1.48 g and 13.00 ± 1.00 cm, respectively, were used. The modified Guelph system was appraised to collect feces. All the twelve test diets were constituted of 69.50% of the reference diet, 0.50% of chromium oxide used as inert marker, and 30% of the ingredient tested. After three days of feeding with the test diets, fish were transferred to the collect aquariums, where feces were collected in intervals of 30 minutes. Using digestibility of the protein, ingredients with best results in this nutrient were fish meal (84.14%), soybean meal (67.10%), corn (64.18%) and chicken poultry by-product (61.25%). Was only observed reasonable values for energy digestibility in half of the ingredients tested; for fish meal, corn, soybean (whole, toasted) and soybean meal of wheat and rice, the mean coefficients values were: 72.80, 57.39, 64.95, 61.66, 53.20, and 51.84%, respectively. Fish meal was the best ingredient available for pintado juveniles diet formulation (45.38%DP and 2790.42 kcal DE/kg), followed by soybean meal (30.86%DP and 2708.45 kcal DE/kg), soybean (whole, toasted) (18.34%DP and 3121.06 kcal DE/kg), corn (5.86%DP and 2691.53 kcal DE/kg), and wheat meal (8.08%DP and 2265.13 kcal DE/kg).
pintado; Pseudoplatystoma coruscans; digestibility; feedstuffs; digestible protein; digestible energy
