This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of dietary coated amino acid on the growth, feed utilization and plasma lysine concentration of juvenile silver perch Bidyanus bidyanus. Four diets were formulated to be isolipidic (10g/100g diet) and isonitrogenous (6g N/100g diet). A fish meal based diet was used as the control. A crystalline amino acid mixture was used to replace 30% dietary nitrogen as the negative control. Other diets contained the same amino acid mixture but coated with cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) or zein. The overall amino acid profile of the experimental diets resembled that of the control diet. Each experimental diet was fed to 5 replicate groups of 10 fish (initial body weight of 4.5 g) three times daily to apparent satiation for 8 weeks. At the end of the growth trial, the final weight, percent weight gain and feed utilization was lowest in the negative control fish, while the aforementioned parameters can be significantly improved via coating the mixture of crystalline amino acid. Furthermore, the determination of plasma lysine concentration on 6 h post-feeding showed that the coating treatments decreased the lag time between absorption of intact protein and crystalline amino acid.