The Role of Quercetin in Aquaculture
To reduce stress, and enhance resistance to pathogens in fish, some feed additives such as vitamin C, vitamin E, oligosaccharides, have been widely used and effective.
Herbal medicines such as Flavonoids have been known to improve the overall health of animals, Flavonoids (or Vitamin P), secondary metabolites of plants, are a group of phenolic compounds with strong antioxidant properties. The antioxidant capacity of flavonols is about 50 times higher than that of vitamin C (Dai et al, 2004)
Quercetin powder image
Quercetin, is a plant pigment (Flavonoid) used as a medicine. It is present in fruits, vegetables, leaves and cereals. Like other flavonoids, quercetin is a strong antioxidant that helps the body fight free radicals and prevent many diseases. Can be used as an ingredient in supplements, beverages, foods. Quercetin has anti-inflammatory properties in addition to its antioxidant effects
Previous studies have shown that quercetin supplementation can reduce oxidative damage caused by excessive production of free radicals, thereby protecting digestive organs such as the pancreas, liver, gastric mucosa, and intestinal mucosa.
Quercetin supplementation in fish diets
Zhai and Liu 2014 studied the effects of Quercetin supplementation in tilapia diets.
Four hundred tilapia were randomly divided into five treatment groups with four replicates in each group/20 fish per replicate. The levels of Quercetin in the diets of the five treatment groups were 0, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 mg/kg, respectively. The experimental period was 49 days.
The results showed that: The weight gain, growth and feed conversion ratio of the Quercetin diet group were significantly improved (P < 0.05) compared to the control group. There was no significant difference in survival rate between the control group and all Quercetin diet groups (P > 0.05) which indicated that Quercetin supplementation did not cause fish mortality.
The activities of digestive enzymes such as protease, lipase, and amylase, in the stomach and intestine were significantly increased when the dietary level of Quercetin was above 400 mg/kg. The lipid level in the body of fish was reduced by quercetin supplementation – this demonstrated that quercetin improved fish health as blood lipid levels are increasingly considered a sign of declining health status in farmed fish.
The results of this study suggest that Quercetin supplementation in tilapia diets may have beneficial effects on digestive enzyme activity, antioxidant potential in the hepatopancreas, and improved growth performance.
Quercetin supplementation in Pacific white shrimp culture water
Biofloc Technology (BFT) systems are a farming method that uses microbial communities to preserve water quality and improve some biological parameters of Pacific white shrimp.
In a study by Diana Carolina Molina León et al. in 2018, water from a biofloc system received four different concentrations of quercetin every 24 hours and a control treatment (no quercetin added).
For 7 days, several water quality parameters were analyzed daily. The results indicated that all parameters remained within the optimal range for Pacific white shrimp.
In the second experiment, shrimp were maintained in a BFT system with quercetin supplementation at 1 mg/L of water and a control group without quercetin supplementation for 30 days.
The results showed that: the flavonoid content in shrimp muscle and hepatopancreas increased after 10 and 20 days of quercetin treatment, respectively; shrimp weight gain was improved when shrimp were supplemented with quercetin.
It was concluded that biofloc technology supplemented with quercetin increased the antioxidant capacity of cultured shrimp without changing water quality parameters and shrimp growth was also significantly improved.
The above studies show that there are two potential methods for using quercetin in aquaculture: supplementing in feed and directly supplementing in culture water. To bring the most effective results, the choice of supplementation method depends on the species and culture model. This report provides an additional phytochemical antioxidant, quercetin, with the potential to stimulate immunity and improve growth in shrimp and fish.
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