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The suitable protein‐to‐lipid ratio for juvenile large yellow croaker, Pseudosciaena crocea Richardson (initial body weight, 0.57 ± 0.11 g) was determined using practical diets in a 4 × 3 factorial experiment. Four dietary protein levels (34%, 37%, 42% and 47%) and three dietary lipid levels (7.5%, 10.5% and 14.0%) were tested. Each of the 12 diets was fed to triplicate groups of croaker juveniles for 60 days in floating netcages (1.0 × 1.0 × 2.0 m3) in the sea. The effects of dietary treatments on survival, weight gain, feed conversion ratio, protein efficiency ratio, hepatosomatic index and carcass composition of the fish were evaluated. At all three lipid levels, the best growth was always obtained in the fish fed diets of 47% protein. At 34% protein, better growth was observed for the fish fed the diet with 10.5% lipid, whereas at the protein levels above 37% the diets containing 10.5% and/or 14.0% lipid proved better. Based on the results of current experiment, the dietary protein:lipid ratio of 47:10.5 appeared to be suitable for this fish. Feed conversion ratio ranged from 1.40 to 1.98, declining with the increases of both dietary protein and lipid. The carcass lipid was correlated positively to dietary lipid, unlike the carcass protein that was independent of dietary protein. There was no interaction between dietary protein and lipid except for carcass lipid. Further investigations should be conducted to determine the optimal protein‐to‐lipid ratio for large yellow croaker juveniles using diets containing higher levels of protein and lipid than 47% and 14%, respectively.

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