This review article organized during the post graduate study of PhD in Aquaculture and fishery management. Background: Feed is one of the factors which play an important role in determining the development of aquaculture industry at a minimum operational cost and gain more profit. Feed costs account up to 60% of total production costs, and inappropriate feeding and feed management can be detrimental to the profits of farmers. Optimal feed management includes the use of well-balanced feeds covering the nutritional and energy requirements and cost efficient feeding regimes. In the formulation of feed it is necessary to determine exact optimum proportions of different feed ingredients which meets nutritional requirements, to be mixed to produce a nutritionally well-balanced feed at the least possible cost. However, the feed mixing problem becomes increasingly since many issues need to be considered simultaneously. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess essential nutrients and mathematical programming models for aquafeed formulation. Methods: Information about aquaculture, essential nutrients, mathematical models, etc collected from secondary sources like published researches, reviews, and books, then, organized following the standard scientific paper writing methods. Results and conclusion: Aquaculture nutrition is a vital area for maintaining the sustainability of aquaculture industry. Feed is the main factors play an important role in determining a successful development of an aquaculture industry. Modified culture systems primarily depend on the supply of well-balanced artificial feed containing protein, lipid, carbohydrate, fiber, digestible energy, vitamins and minerals are very essential in fish farming to realize genetic potential for survival, immunity, growth and reproduction. Fish feed formulation is important for achieving optimal fish production, consumer preference and net benefits to determine the types and quantities of ingredients to be mixed to produce a complete feed at possible low cost. Several models used to solve feed ration of formulation problems, such as Pearson’s Square method, multi-objective goal programming, nonlinear programming, two by two matrix methods, simultaneous equation method, trial and error method, quadratic programming, linear programming, optimization and evolutionary algorithm to formulate least cost diet. However, most of these methods found difficulties on feed mixing problems in finding optimal solutions b/c variability of ingredients price due to varying, fluctuating, and unstable nutrient components. Therefore, application of linear programming in determining the least-cost feed mixture which satisfies certain specific nutritive and nonnutritive requirements is the risk associated with nutritive content of each ingredient. However, stochastic programming is a better approach as compared to linear programming, especially in solving nutrients variability, minimizing cost and the variability of nutrients is accounted for in the formulation.