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Effects of dietary supplementation with algal astaxanthin on growth, pigmentation, and antioxidant capacity of the blood parrot ( Cichlasoma citrinellum × Cichlasoma synspilum )

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Abstract

An algal astaxanthin feeding trial was carried out to investigate the effects of natural astaxanthin from Haematococcus pluvialis as feed additives on growth, pigmenting efficacy and antioxidant capacity in blood parrot ( Cichlasoma citrinellum × Cichlasoma. synspilum ). Tissue total antioxidant capacity (TAC), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and maleic dialdehyde (MDA) were chosen as measures of its antioxidant capacity. All fish which received an astaxanthin (from micro-algal H. pluvialis ) supplemented diet with 400 mg/kg of astaxanthin, after 50 days of feeding, the astaxanthin-fed fish displayed a pinkcolored skin and the control-fed fish displayed a grayish skin. For the growth, the weight gains of controlfed fish and astaxanthin-fed fish were 200% and 300%, respectively. Samples of skin and scales were used for analysis of total carotenoids and astaxanthin content, and fish feeding astaxanthin showed significantly ( P <0.05) higher concentrations than the control group, indicating that the pigmentation of this fish had been significantly improved by dietary astaxanthin. Compared with the control fish, pigmented fish had lower SOD, CAT and MDA and higher TAC. It can be concluded that supplementation with dietary astaxanthin could effectively enhance growth, skin coloration and the antioxidant capacity of this fish. This study will provide a reference for application of natural astaxanthin from H. pluvialis as feed additives in blood parrot artificial breeding. Our data is also useful in ornamental fish farming, especially when the retentivity of astaxanthin in the skin and scales are involved. It is leading to the possibility of increasing the pigmentation of farmed-fish by adding the powdered form of H. pluvialis to the diet as an effective pigment.

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Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for their suggestions, and Professor John Hodgkiss for his help with English correction.

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Author notes

  1. LI Feng and HUANG Shuiying contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Ocean and Earth Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Feng Li  (李峰), Jun Wang  (王俊), Mingwei Lin  (林明伟), Yu An  (安宇), Shaoting Wu  (吴少婷) & Minggang Cai  (蔡明刚)

  2. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Shuiying Huang  (黄水英), Xiaoxia Lu  (陆晓霞) & Minggang Cai  (蔡明刚)

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  1. Feng Li  (李峰)
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Correspondence to Minggang Cai  (蔡明刚).

Additional information

Supported by the Xiamen Scientific and Technologic Projects (XSTP) (Nos. 3052Z20031086, 3052Z20123004), the project of Xiamen Southern Ocean Technology Center of China (No. 14CZP035HJ09), partly funded by the Marine Science Base Scientific Research Training and Scientific Research Ability Enhancement Project of Xiamen University (No. J1210050), the National Marine Commonweal Research Program, China (No. 201205020-2), and the XMU Training Program of Innovation and Enterpreneurship for Undergraduates (No. 2016X0619)

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Li, F., Huang, S., Lu, X. et al. Effects of dietary supplementation with algal astaxanthin on growth, pigmentation, and antioxidant capacity of the blood parrot ( Cichlasoma citrinellum × Cichlasoma synspilum ). J. Ocean. Limnol. 36, 1851–1859 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-7172-7

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