Acidification in monogastric fish

Hello Ryan,
we are operating in South Africa as well - you may get in touch with us via info@addcon.com. To your questions... the difficulty in reaching a low pH after a single meal, as described in the article, was observed in juvenile fish. Similar pattern may be observed in piglets as well. There, the use of acidifiers is more or less standard. In fish, we have done long term studies with tilapia and pangasius (both over several months). We did not look only into the effect on pH... which will have a beneficial impact on protein digestibility, but also on the anti-bacterial effect of acidifier. The use of an acidifier depends a lot on the conditions on farm - protein level of feed, water quality, temperature etc. If the conditions are sub-optimal I would indeed suggest to use the acidifier continuously. Since organic acids are completely metabolizable you will not have any resistances or residues - and side effects have not been noticed. Regarding the proteins... well - in general it is the protein which buffers the acid, regardless what type. There may be changes in the different meals, but I have not seen any data yet. Might be worth looking into. But there will be still a very strong correlation between high protein content in a diet and a high buffer capacity.