article · Aquaculture Nutrition
This study evaluated the effects of different dietary feeding regimens using Aspergillus oryzae on Nile tilapia over a sixty-day period. Fish were given either a continuous control diet without additives, a continuous diet supplemented with Aspergillus oryzae at one gram per kilogram, or alternating schedules providing the supplement every second day or every third day. Continuous supplementation substantially enhanced growth performance, feed intake, protein utilisation, red and white blood cell levels, and intestinal villi length while lowering liver enzyme levels. Crucially, providing the supplement on alternating single days yielded outcomes in growth, digestive enzyme activity, and gut structure that were statistically comparable to continuous feeding. All supplemented schedules also improved protease and lipase digestive enzyme activities. These results demonstrate that intermittent delivery of Aspergillus oryzae offers performance and physiological improvements in Nile tilapia comparable to constant dietary administration.
Feed represents one of the largest operational expenses in commercial fish farming. Demonstrating that beneficial feed additives such as Aspergillus oryzae can be administered on alternating days rather than continuously allows fish farmers to achieve significant improvements in fish growth, gut health, and overall condition while cutting the volume and cost of dietary supplements required.
This research is applied and tested in a controlled feeding trial, making it relevant for aquafeed manufacturers and commercial tilapia producers seeking cost-effective feed formulations. Because an alternating feeding regimen delivered benefits comparable to daily supplementation, feed producers and farm managers could reduce additive costs by half while maintaining fish growth and gut health. Further farm-scale trials under commercial rearing conditions would be required before broader adoption.
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The current study was conducted to evaluate the feeding regimen of Aspergillus oryzae (ASP) on the growth, intestinal histomorphology and blood profile of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Four different ASP-feeding regimens were evaluated, including feeding the basal diet continuously (control), feeding ASP (1 g/kg) continuously (ASPC), feeding ASP for 1 day and the next day without (ASPF1) or feeding ASP for 1 day and the two next days without (ASPF2). After 60 days, the final weight, weight gain, SGR, feed intake, protein efficiency, protein gain, body protein content, haematocrit, haemoglobin, and RBC and WBC values were increased significantly (p < 0.05) with lower glutamic-pyruvate transaminase in ASPC group compared to the control without no difference (p > 0.05) with ASPF1-feeding regimen. Interestingly, glutamyl oxaloacetic transaminase was significantly reduced in all feeding regimens compared to the control (p < 0.05). Protease, lipase and villi length were significantly (p < 0.05) improved in all feeding regimens compared to the control, while amylase activity increased only in ASPC group. Thus, the obtained results indicated that all ASP-feeding regimens resulted in quite similar outcomes with respect to growth, digestive enzyme activity and intestinal histomorphology.
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DOI: 10.1111/anu.12923
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