Background: The aquaculture industry is currently facing significant challenges due to the increasing demand for fishmeal, which is an indispensable ingredient in marine aquaculture. Therefore, reducing of reliance on fishmeal in marine fish nutrition and replace it with natural animal sources that are more sustainable and of comparable nutritional value to those of fishmeal.
Aim: This study investigated the effect of replacing fish meal with sea gastropod (Rapana venosa) meal on growth performance, nutrition and physiological responses of juvenile sea bass.
Methodology. In this regard, three diets were formulated consisting of sea gastropod meal and cinnamaldehyde at 15 and 25 percent. A diet without was used as a control. fishes were allocated into 12 circular fiberglass tanks filled with 300 L seawater (20 fish per tank) and each dietary treatment replicated in triplicate at 8 weeks. fishes were fed two times a day. Results: Diets containing of sea gastropod meal had no significant effect on growth parameters of initial weight, final weight, %weight gain, Feed Intake, feed conversion ratio, protein efficiency ratio, Specific growth rate .The activity of antioxidant enzymes including catalase, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase were increased in the fishes fed sea gastropod meal; meanwhile, the level of malondialdehyde reduced by increasing dietary sea gastropod meal level (P < 0.05). Fishes fed dietary supplemented with %15 sea gastropod meal and the control, had the highest and lowest Amylase, lipase and protease activity, respectively (P<0.05).The Lysozyme, triglycerides, cholesterol, total protein, albumin, total immunoglobulin content in fishes fed with %15 sea gastropod meal dietary was higher than the control (P<0.05). The highest level of white blood cells, red blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and neutrophils were in the fishes fed with %15 sea gastropod meal dietary (P<0.05). There were no statistically significant differences observed be