Evaluation of garlic and onion powder as phyto-additives in the diet of sea bass (Dicentrarcus labrax)

Abstract

The present study is a preliminary work which was conducted to evaluate the impact of adding 3 levels of garlic (10, 20 and 30 g/kg diet) as well as onion powder (5, 10 and 20 g/kg diet) in a basal diet of sea bass (Dicentrarcus labrax) fry (initial weight = 0.4 ± 0.05 g/fish) on growth performance, feed utilization, body composition, survival rate and some hematological parameters. The present results suggested that dietary garlic or onion powder administrated separately at levels of 30 or 10 g/kg respectively could improve survival, growth and feed utilization of sea bass fry. Administration of garlic and onion indicates a slide edge for garlic to onion in growth, feed utilization and fish protein content. It will also induce a significant increase in some blood variables (hemoglobin content, hematocrit value, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin and leukocytes count) in treated fish when compared to the control fish group. ª 2015 National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries. Hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

THE USE OF GARLIC (Allium sativum) MEAL AS A NATURAL FEED SUPPLEMENT IN DIETS FOR EUROPEAN SEABASS (Dicentrarchus labrax) JUVENILES

“…The highest SGR was recored in the GM4 group with 4% garlic meal inclusion (1.43 ± 0.03, %/day), followed by the control group (1.38 ± 0.07, %/day), GM2 (1.27 ± 0.08, %/day) and the GM6 (1.19 ± 0.03, %/day) groups, respectively (Table 3). This growth promotion effect of diets supplemented with garlic meal can be attributed to the improved feed efficiency, which is in agreement with the results in Nile tilapia (Diab et al, 2002;Shalaby et al, 2006;Mesalhy et al, 2008;Soltan and El-Laithy, 2008;Metwally, 2009;Abdel-Hakim et al, 2010), in Asian seabass (Talpur and Ikhwanuddin, 2012), in sterlet sturgeon (Lee et al, 2014), and in Seabass fry (Saleh et al, 2015), where the incorporation of different levels of garlic increased final weights and specific growth rates of fish. Soltan and El-Laithy (2008) reported that the incorporation of 1% garlic into diets improved survival rate of Nile tilapia.…”

“…Mabrouk (2011) tested dietary garlic and onion inclusion levels of 4 % and 6 %, respectively and a 10 % mixture of garlic and onion (4% garlic -6% onion) in diets for Nile tilapia, and reported that the addition of 10% mixture of garlic and onion significantly increased growth performance and feed utilization rather than solitary addition. To our knowledge so far, the only one study dealed with dietary garlic inclusion in European seabass feeds is the one reported by Saleh et al (2015), who tested garlic incorporation levels of 10, 20, and 30 g/kg diet, and recommended 3% dietary garlic for the best growth, improved fish health and welfare. However, the highest garlic incorporation level tested by Saleh et al (2015) was 3%, so based on their report it is not possible to comment on higher levels of garlic additon in the diet for seabass.…”

“…To our knowledge so far, the only one study dealed with dietary garlic inclusion in European seabass feeds is the one reported by Saleh et al (2015), who tested garlic incorporation levels of 10, 20, and 30 g/kg diet, and recommended 3% dietary garlic for the best growth, improved fish health and welfare. However, the highest garlic incorporation level tested by Saleh et al (2015) was 3%, so based on their report it is not possible to comment on higher levels of garlic additon in the diet for seabass. A dietary garlic incorportaiton of 4% gave better results in terms of growth performance and feed utilization in the present study.…”

“…A dietary garlic incorportaiton of 4% gave better results in terms of growth performance and feed utilization in the present study. Furthermore, Saleh et al (2015) investigated the dietary garlic incorporation for seabass fry with an initial weight of 0.4 g, while in the present study larger size of seabass with an initial weight of 10 g were used.…”

“…Probably known as one of the earliest medicinal plants (Farahi et al, 2010), the use of garlic in aquaculture became popular for providing protection against diseases or inducing fish feeds as a growth promoter. Garlic was used as a growth promoter in tilapia (Diab et al, 2002;Shalaby et al, 2006;Mesalhy et al, 2008;Soltan and El-Laithy, 2008;Metwally, 2009;AbdelHakim et al, 2010), in Asian seabass (Talpur and Ikhwanuddin, 2012), in sterlet sturgeon (Lee et al, 2014), and in Seabass fry (Saleh et al, 2015). To our knowledge, so far, no information is available on the effects of dietary garlic on growth performance, feed utilization and body chemical composition in juvenile European seabass, which is one of the main aquaculture species in the Mediterranean, where the Turkish and Greek aquaculture industries share a total production of 211.055 tons with a grand value of 1.293.082 USD for seabass together with seabream (FAO, 2012).…”