The effect of feed pigment type on flesh pigment deposition and colour in farmed Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L.

Abstract

The characteristic pink colour of salmonid¯esh is a result of deposition of naturally occurring carotenoid pigments. Achieving successful pigmentation in farmed salmonids is a vital aspect of ®sh farming and commercial feed production. Currently commercial diets for farmed salmonids contain either or both of the synthetic pigments commercially available, astaxanthin and canthaxanthin. Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L. ( = 220 g initial weight) were given feeds where the pigment source was astaxanthin only, canthaxanthin only or a astaxanthin/ canthaxanthin mix. The rearing environment was 12 Q 3 m tanks supplied with sea water at the EWOS research farm Lùnningdal, near Bergen, Norway. As the proportion of dietary canthaxanthin increased,¯esh pigment levels also showed an increase; the pigment content in the muscle of canthaxanthin-only fed ®sh was 0.4 mg kg ±1 (or 14%) higher than that of the astaxanthin-only fed ®sh, with the mixed pigment fed ®sh being intermediate between the two extremes. Results of crosssection assessment for Minolta colorimeter redness (a*) values and Roche Salmofan TM scores also showed an increase in colour with increasing proportions of canthaxanthin in the feed. The data reported clearly indicates that S. salar ( = 810 g ®nal weight) of this size deposit canthaxanthin more ef®ciently than they do astaxanthin. These results contrast with those obtained by other authors with rainbow trout, Oncorynchus mykiss (Walbaum), and imply that the absorption or utilization of the pigments differs between species.

Effects of dietary supplementation with krill meal on pigmentation and quality of flesh of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

“…In Atlantic salmon, SalmoFan was able to score an increase in colour when increasing proportions of canthaxanthin were added to the feed compared with astaxanthin (Buttle et al, 2001). In the same species, some interesting studies showed a significant linear correlation between the SalmoFan score and muscle astaxanthin concentration .…”

Comparison of Minolta colorimeter and machine vision system in measuring colour of irradiated Atlantic salmon

“…It is widely used for measuring the colour of seafoods such as Atlantic salmon, 4 rainbow trout, 5 Arctic charr 6 and surimi products. 7 Although the Minolta colorimeter provides simple and fast colour measurements, it has some limitations.…”

Improving the quality of tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon through dietary incorporation of algae as a source of natural pigment

“…The Enteromorpha Improving shrimp quality through dietary incorporation of natural algal astaxanthin sample selected for the investigation is found to contain 120.78 ppm astaxanthin as reported from the present study region (Mitra et al, 2013;Banerjee et al, 2009;Chakraborty and Santra, 2008). Carotenoid, particularly astaxanthin content of feed is one of the major factors influencing the colour development in animals (Moretti et al, 2006) but at the same time scientific knowledge about several factors like dietary pigment source, their dosage level, feeding duration, dietary composition and magnitude of carotenoid esterification is also required to identify these interaction processes (Meyers and Latscha, 1997;Bjerkeng, 2000;Buttle et al, 2001;Gomes et al, 2002;White et al, 2002). The present study showed significantly different astaxanthin content of the farmed shrimp which are in agreement to the observations that crustaceans exhibit strong tendency towards selection of specific carotenoids at a specific rate for their metabolic absorption (Meyers and Latscha, 1997).…”