.1. Proximate composition of the formulated diets
All diets were accepted and consumed by juveniles of O. maya. Proximal data analysis showed that experimental diets made with crab (Cr), squid (Sq) and crab–squid mix (CrSq) had protein levels (mean value of 93.2% CP) higher than observed in the diets SiSq (76.5%) and SiCrSq (63.7%) ( Table 1). An inverse relationship between CP and total lipids (TL) was observed with high values of TL in diets made with silages and low TL in diets made with raw ingredients ( Table 1).
3.2. Weights, growth, ingestion rate and survival
The highest final weight was observed by octopuses consuming the CrSq diet, followed by animals fed the Cr diet. Negative weights were obtained from octopuses fed the SiSq diet (Table 2). The specific growth rate (SGR% day− 1) showed differences between the experimental diets (Table 2; P = 0.0000) with high values for animals fed CrSq (3.04 ± 0.39% day− 1) followed by animals fed Cr and Sq, and low values for animals fed SiCrSq. Negative values were obtained from animals fed SiSq (P < 0.0001; Table 2). At the end of the experiment, CrSq was the only diet that showed 100% survival, followed by Cr (55%) and Sq (50%) (Table 2). Survival of animals fed silages showed survivals lower than 50% (Table 2).