Nutritional quality of different starches in feed fed to juvenile Yellow Perch, Perca flavescens

Authors: JIANG, MING - Chinese Academy Of Sciences; ZHAO, HUIHONG - South China Agricultural University; ZAI, SHOAWEI - University Of Wisconsin; NEWTON, RYAN - University Of Wisconsin; Shepherd, Brian; TAIN, JUAN - Chinese Academy Of Sciences; LOFALD, ANNAMARIE - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE); TEH, SWEE - University Of California, Davis; BINKOWSKI, FRED - University Of Wisconsin; DENG, DONG-FENG - University Of Wisconsin

Submitted to: Aquaculture Nutrition
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/2/2019
Publication Date: 12/1/2019
Citation: Jiang, M., Zhao, H., Zai, S., Newton, R.J., Shepherd, B.S., Tain, J., Lofald, A.G., Teh, S., Binkowski, F.P., Deng, D. 2019. Nutritional quality of different starches in feed fed to juvenile Yellow Perch, Perca flavescens. Aquaculture Nutrition. 26:671-682. https://doi.org/10.1111/anu.13026.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anu.13026

Interpretive Summary: Yellow perch (Perca flavescens) are an important food fish in the Midwestern United States. Fatty liver and over accumulation of visceral lipid, often exceeding 10% body weight, are routinely observed in yellow perch fed commercial feeds. This inefficient use of commercial diets increases the overall costs of yellow perch production. The objective of this study was to investigate effects of different dietary sources of carbohydrates on yellow perch growth performance, health and lipid levels. Juvenile yellow perch were fed a fishmeal-based control diet containing no carbohydrate and three additional diets containing 20% starch from either corn, potato or wheat to replace fishmeal in the control diet. The results showed that fish fed different test diets had similar growth and feed conversion ratio. Even though growth was similar among the tested diets, biochemical composition and health of the fish differed. Fish fed wheat starch had the highest liver sizes, and significantly higher level of visceral lipid, liver lipid and whole body lipid than those fed other test diets. Feeding dietary wheat starch also resulted in higher liver pathology as measured by lesion score, increased hepatocyte diameter and decreased number of Kupffer cells in liver tissue histology sections. Results of this study demonstrate that dietary starch from corn or potato has no adverse effects on yellow perch, but dietary supplementation with wheat starch impairs yellow perch physiology. A better understanding of the most suitable sources of dietary carbohydrate will improve production efficiency and contain feed costs for yellow perch producers.

Technical Abstract: Fatty liver and accumulated visceral fat are commonly observed in yellow perch fed commercially-available aquafeeds. The aim of this study was to determine if these issues can be affected by varying sources of dietary starch. This study compared the growth performance, nutritional composition and indices of fish health fed a control diet (containing no carbohydrate) and three diets containing one of the starch sources (corn, potato and wheat) at a level of 200 g/kg diet to replace an equal amount fishmeal in the control diet. The results showed that yellow perch had similar growth rates among different dietary treatments (P > 0.05). However, the wheat starch based diet significantly enlarged liver size, increased lipid accumulation in liver, viscera, and whole body (P < 0.05). Fish health indices were significantly impacted based on histological and serum biochemical analysis when compared to the control group. Corn starch or potato starch were shown to be an appropriate carbohydrate source for yellow perch based on the growth performance and fish health evaluation.