Farmed fish and crustaceans are no different from terrestrial livestock in that their nutritional well-being and health is based on the ingestion and digestion of food containing 40 or so essential dietary nutrients, including specific proteins and amino acids, lipids and fatty acids, carbohydrates and sugars, minerals, vitamins, energy, and water.

The present technical paper presents an up-to-date overview of the major feed ingredient sources and feed additives commonly used within industrially compounded aquafeeds, including feed ingredient sources commonly used within farm-made aquafeeds, and major fertilizers and manures used in aquaculture for live food production. Information is provided concerning the proximate and essential amino acid composition of common feed ingredient sources, as well as recommended quality criteria (when available) and relative nutritional merits and limitations (if any), together with a bibliography of published feeding studies for major feed ingredient sources by cultured species.

The technical paper is divided into five main sections. Section 1 deals with principles of feed ingredient and fertilizer analysis, including official methods of proximate chemical analysis, the analysis of amino acids, non-protein nitrogen, fatty acids, phospholipids, sterols, carbohydrates, sugars, energy, vitamins, minerals, the presence of anti-nutritional factors and contaminants, and the analysis of the physical properties of feed ingredients and feed microscopy. This is followed by a second section dealing with methods of analysis for fertilizers and manures, and a third section presenting a glossary of major feed and feed milling terms, including methods for ingredient classification and description in numerical terms.

The main body of the technical paper (section 4) deals with the nutritional composition and usage of major feed ingredient sources in compound aquafeeds, as well as the use of fertilizers and manures in aquaculture operations. Major feed ingredient and fertilizer groupings discussed include: animal protein sources (includes: fishery products, terrestrial livestock products, terrestrial invertebrate products), plant protein sources (includes: cereal products, oilseed products, pulse and grain legume seed products, miscellaneous plant protein sources), single cell protein sources (includes: algae, bacteria, yeast), lipid sources (includes: marine oils, livestock fats, vegetable oils), other plant ingredients (includes: terrestrial plant products, aquatic plant products), feed additives (includes: amino acids and related products, mineral products, vitamins, and chemical preservatives and antioxidants), and fertilizers and manures (includes: chemical fertilizers, organic manures). The feed ingredient section is followed by a summary of the major published studies dealing with potential feed and fertilizer contaminants, including metals and mineral salts, mycotoxins, persistent organic pollutants, Salmonellae and other microbes, veterinary drug residues, other agricultural chemicals and solvent residues, and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.

The last section of the technical paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the essential amino acid profiles of the major reported feed ingredient sources for cultured finfish and crustaceans, and presents average reported dietary inclusion levels of major feed ingredient sources used within practical feeds, including their major attributes and limitations. Finally, the importance of feed safety, traceability, and use of good feed manufacturing practices is stressed, together with the importance of considering the long term sustainability of feed ingredient supplies and the need to maximize the use of locally available feed ingredient sources whenever economically possible.