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A 6‐wk feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of various dietary lipid levels on quantitative requirements for essential fatty acids (EFA) by juvenile Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei. A factorial experiment with three dietary lipid levels (3, 6, and 9%) and three dietary levels (0.5, 1, and 2%) of a mixture of n‐3 highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) was used. An increase in quantitative requirements for EFA with increasing supplementation level of dietary lipid was not demonstrated. Results suggested that this shrimp species appeared to be able to satisfy its n‐3 HUFA requirements when they were supplied at 0.5% of diet; this dietary level may be even lowered. Moreover, depressed growth was observed in shrimp fed diets with the HUFA mixture supplemented at 2%. In addition, the present study showed that increasing the dietary lipid level had an effect on lipid composition of shrimp, by increasing lipid deposition in hepatopancreas and muscle tissue, but without a significant effect on growth.

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