A Comparison of Various Seaweed-Based Diets and Formulated Feed on Growth Rate of Abalone in a Land-Based Aquaculture System

Abstract

The effects of different diets on growth in the cultured South African abalone, Haliotis midae (Linnaeus), was investigated. Growth of juvenile Haliotis midae was monitored on a commercial abalone farm over a period of 9 months in an experiment consisting of 9 treatments with 4 replicates (n = 250 individuals per replicate). The treatments were: fresh kelp (Ecklonia maxima) blades (seaweed control); Abfeed R (formulated feed control); kelp + Abfeed R ; dried kelp pellets; dried kelp blades; dried kelp stipes; fresh kelp with the epiphyte Carpoblepharis flaccida; a mixed diet (Gracilaria gracilis, Ulva lactuca, and kelp) and a rotational diet (abalone were fed 1 of the 9 treatments for the first week and them kelp for the next 3 weeks). Results show that abalone grow well on all fresh seaweed combinations, but grow best on a mixed diet. The likely reason for the success of the mixed diet is that the red and green seaweed was farm grown, with an increased protein content. Dried kelp in any form produced poor growth. Abalone fed on the mixed diet grew at 0.066 mm day −1 shell length and 0.074 g day −1 body weight; this corresponds to 24.09 mm shell length and 27.01 g body weight increase per annum. Abalone fed on dried kelp grew at only 0.029 mm day −1 shell length and of 0.021 g day −1 body weight. Abalone grown on Abfeed R grew at 0.049 mm day −1 shell length and 0.046 g day −1 body weight which corresponds to 17.88 mm and 16.79 g increase per annum; this is better than the dried seaweed feeds, but poorer than the fresh seaweed combinations. This study shows that seaweed diets, particularly if the diets include seaweeds grown in animal aquaculture effluent, are good substitutes for the formulated feed generally used today.

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“…Similarly, MA common ly used as feed in wild did not produce the optimal performance of abalone (Lee, 1998;Cho et al, 2006;Kim et al, 1998;Naidoo et al, 2006;Cho et al, 2008;Gracia-Esquivel & Felbeck, 2009;Dang et al, 2011;Myung et al, 2016).…”

Hepatoprotective efficacy of Hypnea muciformis ethanolic extract on CCl4 induced toxicity in rats

“…This could explain the lower levels of these transaminases observed in the rats treated with the seaweed extract after exposure to the toxin. The tendency of other marker enzymes to return towards a near-normalcy in the H. muciformis treated rats was a clear manifestation of anti-hepatotoxic effect due to the presence of sulphated polysaccharides and vitamin C in the seaweed extract (Naidoo et al 2006). The results were comparable to sylimarin.…”

“…By trapping the oxygen related free radicals, the H. muciformis extract could hinder their interaction with the polyunsaturated fatty acids and would abolish the enhancement of lipid peroxidative processes (Upadhyay et al 2001). It is well documented that flavonoids and glycosides are strong antioxidants (Natarajan et al 2006). The antioxidant principles from the natural marine resources are multifaceted in their effects and provide enormous scope in correcting the imbalance through regular intake of a proper diet.…”

Effects of wild and farm-grown macroalgae on the growth of juvenile South African abaloneHaliotis midaeLinnaeus

“…While many studies (Owen et al 1984, Day and Fleming 1992, Fleming 1995a, Simpson and Cook 1998, Naidoo et al 2006, Dlaza et al 2008) have shown the benefits of variability in the diets (e.g. mixed and rotational diets) of abalone, no studies exist to show the benefit of feeding farm-grown macroalgae over that of their wild counterparts.…”