Spirulina in Aquaculture

In commercialization and high stocking density of culture practice, the feeding has the significant contribution for fast growth and high yields. The aquafeed is potentiated with many ingredients in highly balanced nutritious components for enhancing the digestive mechanisms in fish and shrimp body. It leads the better body weights, high health, optimum immunity, more survivals, less incidence of disease etc in aquaculture ponds. Spirulina is a unique high quality natural diet with enriched optimum protein for fish and shrimp which has proven as a best supplementary feeding in aquaculture.

Spirulina is a blue green algae like a spiral of long thin threads under genus Arthrospira, the phylum Oscillatoriaceae.  Spirulina is called blue green algae (Cynobacteria ) because of presence of both  green(chlorophyll and blue( phycocyanin ) pigments in its cellular structure. The two common species are more important for its nutritious value, Spirulina maxima and Spirulina plantensis. 

 

NUTRITIONAL FOOD VALUE: The use of spirulina as complementary feed in various sector of aquaculture resulting fast growth factors, enhancing the pigmentation and immunity systems. It is considered as an excellent food, lacking toxicity and having corrective properties against the pathogenic micro organisms. It lacks cellulose cell walls and therefore do not requires chemical or processing in order to become digestible. The digestibility is 83 – 84 %. Spirulina is regarded as a rich source of protein, vitamins, essential mineral, amino acids, EFFA like gamma LNA and antioxidant pigments like carotenoids.

Protein & Amino acids :-Spirulina contains 60-70% protein along with phenolic acids, tocopherols, carotenes and linolenic acids for which represents an important stapale in diets. The essential  amino acids are present around 47 % of total  protein weight. The spectrum of amino acid represent that the biological value of proteins in spirulina is very high .                               

 Amino acid  and Biological  function of Fishes & Shrimps

Cabohydrates:  Spirulina contains about 15 -21 % carbohydrates in the form of Glucose, fructose, sucrose, rhamnose, mannose, xylose and galactose. It provides the appropriate and important food stuff for aquatic culture animals with problems of poor intenstinal absorption. Carbohydrates occur in sufficient quantities of mesoinositol phosphate which is the excellent source of organic phosphorus and inositol. A high moleculatory weight polysaccharide are believed to have effect on DNA repair mechanisms, immune-stimulatory and immunoregulatory properties.

Nucleic acids : Spirulina contains 2.2 % - 3.5 %  of RNA and 0.6 %-1% and DNA, which represents less than 5% of these acids,based on dry weight.

Essential fatty acids:  Spirulina has a high amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and 1.5–2.0 percent of total lipid. Spirulina is rich in γ-linolenic acid (ALA), linoleic acid (LA), stearidonic acid (SDA),  eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA).

β-carotene and vitamins: Spirulina contains vitamin B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (nicotinamide), B6 (pyridoxine), B9 (folic acid), B12 (cyanocobalamin), vitamin C, vitamin D and vitamin E. The β-carotene, B-group vitamin, vitamin E, iron, potassium and chlorophyll available in the spirulina can promote the metabolism of carbohydrate, fats, protein, alcohol, and the reproduction of skin, muscle and mucosa. Spirulina contains large amounts of natural β-carotene and this β-carotene is converted into vitamin A.

Minerals: Spirulina is a rich source of potassium, and also contains calcium, chromium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium, sodium, zinc, molybdenum, chloride, germanium and boron.                                                                                                                                                         

Photosynthetic pigments: Spirulina contains many pigments including chlorophyll a, xanthophyll, betacarotene, echinenone, myxoxanthophyll, zeaxanthin, canthaxanthin, diatoxanthin,   3-hydroxyechinenone, beta-cryptoxanthin, oscillaxanthin, plus the phycobiliproteins, c-phycoc yanin and allophycocyanin.                                                                                                                                                

Natural Pigment Enhancers: Phycocyanin (Blue): 14%, Chlorophyll (Green): 1% ,  Carotenoids (Orange/ Red): 47%.                                                                                                                                                                   

Spirulina can be used as a partial supplementation or complete replacement for protein in aqua feeds. Spirulina is a feed supplement for the all fishes, giant freshwater prawns and marine water shrimps and significantly improvement occurs on growth, survival, immunity, viability and feed utilization. Spirulina is a cheaper feed ingredient with high protein than others of animal origin. Spirulina diet is found as most suitable supplementary feeding to reduce the cultivation time and mortality, and increase shell thickness of shrimp carapace.  Feeding on spirulina helps to improve disease resistance and an improvement in their survival rate. Fast growth occurs when fed a diet containing spirulina meal (Britz, 1996 )

Chelating of toxic minerals (neutralization of toxic minerals) Spirulina has a unique quality to detoxify (neutralize) or to chelate toxic minerals, and this characteristic is not yet noticed in any other microalgae (Maeda and Sakaguchi, 1990; Okamura and Aoyama, 1994). Spirulina can be used to detoxify arsenic from water and food. It also may be used to chelatize or detoxify or neutralize the poisonous effect of heavy metals (minerals) from water, food and environment. Spirulina provides phycocyanin, a source of biliverdin which is among the most potent of all intra-cellular antioxidants.

Immunomodulatory Property: Spirulina is an effective immune modulator. It exhibits anti inflammatory properties, in particularly by inhibiting the release of histamine from mast cell with mediated allergic reactions .It shows antioxidative and free radical scavenging properties. Spirulina exposure enhances the phagocytic functions of macrophages in aquatic culture animals. It also has antiviral and anticarcinogenic properties. It improves the bacterial gut tract clearance potential of fish/shrimp and spirulina supplements develops the phagocytic cell. The spirulina is safe diet   to use in terms of improved immune competence without compromising the performing behaviors of aquatic culture animals. A novel sulphate polysaccharide of spirulina inhibits the replication of several enveloped viruses.

The nutrients of spirulina help to fight free radicals, cell-damaging molecules absorbed by the body through pollution, poor diet, injury, or stress. By removing free radicals, the nutrients help the immune system fight cancer and cellular degeneration. Spirulina is a powerful tonic for the immune system. This enzyme is a major source of super oxide in an animal’s body, and is involved in dozens of degenerative processes involved in disease resistance, aging and similar processes in fish ,shrimp and other aquatic animals                                                                                                                                                                 

Spirulina  in building red blood cells and stem cells : Spirulina is rich in a brilliant blue polypeptide called Phycocyanin. Phycocyanin affects the stem cells that make up the cellular immune system and red blood cells that oxygenate the body. Phycocyanin stimulating hematopoiesis, (the creation of blood), emulating the affect of the hormone erythropoetin, (EPO). Phycocyanin also regulates production of white blood cells, even when bone marrow stem cells are damaged by toxic chemicals or radiation

Spirulina Anti-Viral and Anti-Cancer abilities: Calcium-Spirulan is a unique polymerized sugar molecule extract of spirulina and containing both Sulfur and Calcium. The treatment of this water soluble extract has better recovery rates when infected with a lethal Herpes virus. This mechanism occurs because Calcium-Spirulan does not allow the virus to penetrate the cell membrane to infect the cell. The virus is stuck, unable to replicate. It is eventually eliminated by the body's natural defenses. Spirulina can prevent or inhibit cancers in aquatic animals, and fishes. The unique polysaccharides of spirulina enhance cell nucleus enzyme activity and DNA repair synthesis.                                                                                                             

Antimicrobial Property  : Spirulina excretes variable quantities of products from its metabolism such as organic acid, vitamins and phytohormones. Cell extract of spirulina has shown antimicrobial activities against pathogenic bacteria as like Bacillus sps, Streptococcus sps, Saccharomyces sps etc.

Bio-mineralization activities :  Spirulina  thrives in high alkaline waters and it incorporates & synthesizes many minerals and derivative compounds into its cell structure. Transformed into natural organic forms by Spirulina, minerals become chelated with amino acids and they are more easily assimilated by the body. Along with adequate calcium and magnesium in the water (especially for marine organisms), Spirulina helps insure proper electrolyte function, calcium levels over calcium and other mineral.

Enhance the Reproduction activity: Research has shown that fresh and saltwater fish and shrimp exhibit superior growth, maturity, energetic behavior, and more elegant coloring when fed spirulina. It is also well documented that spirulina improves spawning, fecundity, fertility and hatching rates. It stimulates the reproductive processes, increases survival rates of younger fish, post larvae and promotes the appetite of  fish/prawn to attain  full mature .

Spirulina as a colourant : The color appearance is the most important characteristic in case of  shrimps and  fishes for choice & demand in food market. Spirulina diet promotes the physiological activities for generating the color pigmentations and glazing appearance in various parts of body. Carotenoids are responsible for the development of various colours of crustaceans (Britton et al., 1981). Astaxanthin has been shown to be the predominant carotenoid associated with the red body colour of the black tiger prawn Penaeus monodon (Howell and Matthews, 1991). Spirulina platensis & pacifica staincontains the highest levels of β-carotene and zeaxanthin of any natural source .They both are converted to astaxanthin through an oxidative process for the desire red pigment. A marked increase in carotenoid content of the carapace of black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) occurred when spirulina-supplemented diets are given. A practical strategy for the improved pigmentation of cultured P. monodon is the incorporation of spirulina diet for one month before harvest.

As natural resources feed, Spirulina play an important role in aquaculture. Especially in the aquatic farming and hatchery etc, the results are quite significant. If spirulina feed further improves to the microcapsules, help digestion, and promote the shell development and its effect are more obvious. The prospects of Spirulina will be very bright in the feed applications. Spirulina appears to have considerable potential for development, especially as a small-scale crop for nutritional enhancement, livelihood development and environmental mitigation. Spirulina is widely used in aquaculture and it can promote the growth of cultured species, increase appetite, increase disease resistance, and increase the survival rate of larvae in aquaculture, and it’s breeding fast and easy to cultivate.

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Venkataraman, L.V., Somasekaran, T. & Becker, E.W. 1994. Replacement value of blue-green alga (Spirulina platensis) for fish meal and a vitamin-mineral premix for broiler chicks. British Poultry Sci.,3: 373–381.                                

Vonshak, A. & Richmond, A. 1988. Mass production of the blue-green alga Spirulina: an overview.Biomass, 15: 233–247.                                                                                                                                                                                    

NOTE : -PVS Group, Vijayawada A.P,  A leading exporters and manufacturers of Aquaculture specialties ,has been manufactured a wide range of products including  Probiotic, Feed supplements, Spirulina Powder, Minerals,Oxygen enhancers, Zeolite, pH care ,Ammonia reducer ,pond water sanitizers & disinfectant ,etc for application in aquaculture ponds against the all  problems arises due to nutrients imbalance, poor growth, others  for complete solution.