Aqua feeds and the soymeal.

Dr.A.P.Gandhi Principal Scientist (Biochemistry) Soybean processing and Utilization Center Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering Bhopal

Introduction Aquaculture has extremely rapid expansion during last few years due to increasing cost of sea caught fish and decreasing supplies of naturally grown fishes. Fish require high protein foods for economical growth rates under intensive culture conditions. Commercially high protein feed stuffs such as fish foods contain 25-45% crude protein. Consequently high protein feed stuffs such as fish and animal by product meals and oil seed meals made up to 60% or more of the ingredients in commercial fish feeds. Aquaculture profits are closely related to the feed supply and feed protein costs. Intensive aquaculture farming requires high protein levels in feeds. The limited supply and high cost of fish meal has encouraged considering the alternate sources. High vegetable protein concentrates in fish diets generally result in low growth rates and poor feed efficiency ratios due to imbalance in the essential nutrients, raw material anti nutritional factors, low palatability or pellets which are not water stable. Soy meal is gaining popularity as a vegetable meal due to its chemical composition, amino acid profile and high availability around the world at lower prices than fish meals. In this context soybean protein can play an important role in intensive aquaculture. Also fish use fats more efficiently as an energy source than carbohydrates, thus soy bean oil may also fill a role in the fish feeding programs. Nutritional requirements of aqua culture species For growth, reproduction and other normal physiological functions they need to consume proteins, minerals, vitamins, other growth promoting factors and also different energy sources. If the fish are to be held in an artificial confinement where natural foods are absent, their diet must be nutritionally complete in all aspects. The nutritional requirement of fish does not vary greatly among species. Notable changes may be in the essential fatty acids, sterols and carbohydrates. Proteins and amino acids: Fishes have higher protein requirements than land animals but they have lower energy requirements. Production diets for cultured fishes will contain 3035% amino acid balanced protein. Fish appear to require the same ten essential amino acids as warm blooded animals. They are arginine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenyl alanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Quantitative requirements for the essential amino acids are determined by feeding graded levels of one amino acid at a time in a test containing crystalline amino acids. Growth data from the amino acids feeding trials are plotted against amount of amino acid in the diet and the requirement is determined by the break point in the response curve. Supplementation of soy meal with methionine improved the growth rates. Increasing the feeding frequencies to four times improve the utilization of amino acids. Energy: The fish need less amount of energy for protein synthesis. This is mainly because that fish need not to maintain the body temperature. They exert relatively less energy to maintain position and to move in water. They excrete moat of their nitrogenous wastes as ammonia instead of urea or uric acid, thus loosing less energy in protein catabolism and excretion of nitrogenous wastes. Heat increment, the rise in energy expenditure associated

with the assimilation of ingested food is lower in fish. All fish utilize proteins and fats as energy sources effectively. Warm water fishes digest the grain carbohydrates relatively better but cold water species digest them poorly. Metabolizable energy in highly digested, concentrated protein feed stuffs is higher for fish. Vitamins: The fish need 15 vitamins in their feed. They are A, D, E, Mezadione, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Pyridoxine, D-calcium panatathonate, Niacin, Folacin, B12, Choline and ascorbic acid. Symptom common to a deficiency of these vitamins are depressed appetite and reduced growth rate, anemia, abnormal skin pigmentation, ataxia, hypersensitivity, hemorrhage, fatty livers and increased susceptibility to microbial infections. Minerals: Fish can absorb the dissolve minerals from the water across the gill membrane or in the case of, marine fishes which drink water by absorption through gut. Most of the requirements for iron, calcium, magnesium, cobalt. Potassium, sodium and zinc can be obtained from the water. Fish require a dietary source of phosphorus to meet relatively high metabolic requirement because the levels of dissolved phosphorus in water is low. Essential fatty acids: Fish need fat diets for growth. They need omega 3 fatty acids. They are necessary in the membrane phospholipids to maintain the flexibility and permeability characteristics at low temperatures. Some crustaceans require sterols. In some cases the growth rate is improved by adding the lecithin. Diet preparation Physical properties are very important in fish feed preparation. The feed must be prepared in pelleted or extruded forms that hold together for a reasonable time in water. The particle must be of optimum size for consumption. Ingredients that enhance pellet quality are starchy materials, high gluten wheat flour and fish meal. Ingredients that do not pellet well are high fat and high fiber materials. Good binding materials are wheat gluten pre gelatinized starch and organic binders such as hemicelluloses or lignin sulfonate products. Nutritional value of soy meal Dehulled and solvent extracted soy meal contains more than 50% protein which is approximately 85% digestible. Soybean protein has one of the best amino acid profiles of all protein rich plant food stuffs for meeting the essential amino acid requirements of fish. Methionine and cystine requirement may be met through other sources. Available energy: The fish utilize the gross energy in solvent extracted soy meal. Assuming that fish have a digestible energy requirement of approximately 8-10 Kcal/g of protein, all the ingredients of soy meal meet target. Available nutrients: Phosphorus is the most critical mineral in soybean meal because of the high requirements by the fish. Unlike calcium, phosphorus is not absorbed in significant quantity from the water. The dietary requirement is 0.5%. Although the soybean meal contains about 0.6% phosphorus, only 1/3 of that the non phytic fraction is available to fish. A trace mineral supplement is recommended with soybean meal when less than 15% fish meal or animal by product is used in the diet. Essential fatty acids: Un processed soybean oil contains about 8% of omega 3 and 55% of omega 6 fatty acids.

Use of soybean meal in fish feeds Replacement of the fish meal: When energy and phosphorus requirements are met, the soy meal could replace the fish meal. Compliment with fish meal will serve better. Palatability: Some fish find soybean meal unpalatable. But most of them consume all plant diets in which the soy meal is the major ingredient. Antinutritional factors in soybean: Heating received during the commercial extraction of soybeans destroys the anti nutritional factors. Further heating probably improves the nutritional value. Full fat roasted soybean meal: The use of full fat soybean meal in fish feeds improves the availability of nutrients in a more efficient way. The improved protein quality and additional energy are the nutritional benefits. Supplementation with synthetic amino acids: Soybean meal supplementation with lysine, methionine, histidine and leucine improved the growth of the fishes. Conclusion The fish culture is fast growing in India as a food source industry. Fish feed requires protein rich ingredients. Fish meal is the traditional component but it is expensive. In this context soy meal is the best alternate source which provides a well balanced amino acid profile. It is also palatable to most species. With adequate supplementation in diet of energy, minerals and possibly the methionine and lysine the soy meal is capable of replacing the fish meal. The review indicates that warm water fishes and shrimps fed on soybean products achieve satisfactory growth. Soy meal from solvent extraction plants has about 49% crude protein of which 85% is digestible for cat fish, rainbow trout and tilapia and 90% for shrimps. Palatability is the main limiting factor for soybean use in salmon and trouts. The main recommendation related to whole soybean use in fish feed diets is that the fat levels should be maintained. The lecithin is a major source of choline, inositol and several nutritional components. Besides, protecting vitamin A and E against oxidation, lecithin also promotes the utilization of fats and vitamins. Full fat soybean provides high protein and energy source. The composite diet may contain ground nut cake, toasted soybean meal, fish meal, rice bran, vegetable oil and vitamin-mineral mixture.