New B vitamin recommendations in fish when fed plant-based diets

Abstract

The present review presents data on fish requirement for B vitamins and describes their mechanism of action. Both general deficiency symptoms such as reduced growth and appetite, and more specific deficiency signs, for example abnormal swimming activity due to thiamine deficiency, are included. The rationale is to elucidate the need to establish B vitamin recommendations for fish fed practical diets where the major part consists of plant ingredients. Most requirement studies referred to were performed with semi-purified diets with relatively low growth rate compared to the growth potential of the fish obtained with practical diets. Further, when giving salmon a plant-based diet (70% plant ingredients), substantial lowered growth was obtained even when the diet was added vitamins according to the newest established requirements. New recommendations for B vitamin addition in plant-based diets are therefore urgent. Few requirement studies exist and often with lack of doseresponse data. For riboflavin and biotin, this review includes a meta-analysis to support earlier requirement estimates. Too few data existed on the others to perform any meta-analyses that made sense. Based on literature data, meta-analyses, new experiments utilizing doseresponse designs and identification of metabolic biomarkers, this review suggests new B vitamin recommendations for fish fed plant-based diets.

Characterization of pantothenic acid deficiency and the dietary requirement of juvenile hybrid striped bass, Morone chrysops×M. saxatilis

“…Hansen et al (2015) expressed concern that vitamin requirements quantified with fish consuming semi-purified diets, which may confer lower weight gain than the species' potential, could yield inaccurate requirements. In the present study, juvenile hybrid striped bass fed the semi-purified diet composed of red drum muscle and crystalline amino acids had excellent weight gain comparable to that of fish fed practical diets containing 40% crude protein from fishmeal and soybean meal (Castillo et al, 2014).…”

Dietary pantothenic acid requirement of fingerlingChanna punctatus(Bloch) based on growth, feed conversion, liver pantothenic acid concentration and carcass composition

“…Vitamins are the essential component of the fish feed. Their supplementation in fish feeds has been used to improve the fish production (Barrows, Gaylord, Sealey, Porter, & Smith, 2008;Hansen, Waagbo, & Hemre, 2015;Hemre et al, 2016;Olsvik, Hemre, & Waagbo, 2013). Among the vitamins, pantothenic acid is an important micronutrient which is responsible for several metabolic functions.…”

Peer Review #1 of "Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) require increased dietary levels of B-vitamins when fed diets with high inclusion of plant based ingredients (v0.1)"

“…In addition to growth, HSI and VSI, B-vitamins requirement can be defined based on body and/or organ concentration saturation together with specific biomarkers for each of the vitamins (Hansen et al 2015).…”

“…Both level and form of B-vitamins and some of the indispensable amino acids, are significantly different in plant ingredients and fishmeal (Hansen et al 2007;2015). B-vitamins are co-factors in the intermediate metabolism of protein, carbohydrates and lipid, and high concentrations of specific B-vitamins are often present in metabolically active tissues (Waagbø 2010).…”

“…For many of the B-vitamins no recommendations exist for Atlantic salmon. General symptoms for Bvitamin deficiency are reduced growth and appetite (Hansen et al 2015). Therefore, the reduced growth when salmon was given a high combined plant protein and vegetable oil based diet (Torstensen et al 2008), might partly be explained by too low levels of several of the B-vitamins, or other components, such as taurine which are absent in plant ingredients (Espe et al, 2016).…”