Data on growth performance, haematology and biochemistry indicate that a very high replacement of FM and FO is feasible in juveniles of gilthead sea bream when the theoretical requirements of essential nutrients are met by the diet (Benedito-Palos et al., 2016). However, extreme diet formulations might require (less than 10% of marine feedstuffs) a short adaptive period to avoid initial and transient detrimental effects on growth performance. Apparently, butyrate supplementation did not alter this time course, although it was able to restore the normal circulating concentration of haemoglobin and cholesterol levels. Other butyrate-mediated effects included the increase of plasma levels choline and IGF-I over the course of the summer growth spurt. At the same time, butyrate supplementation was able to reverse the increased expression of inflammatory cytokines and muscle markers of cellular morphogenesis and protein breakdown in fish fed the extreme FM/FO diet. However, the long-term consequences of feeding very low FM and FO diets in a hermaphroditic fish such as gilthead sea bream remains mostly unexplored. Thus, we analysed herein the effects of ARRAINA fish feed formulations on growth performance (through all life cycle) and steroid sexual production in three year-old fish fed from early life stages with low FM/FO diets with/without butyrate supplementation.

Trabajo presentado en Aquaculture Europe 2016: Food for Thought, celebrado en Edimburgo (Escocia) del 21 al 23 de septiembre de 2016

Peer reviewed