ALGO-CLAY COMPLEX ON NILE TILAPIA PERFORMANCE UNDER MYCOTOXIN POLICONTAMINATION

In recent years, the awareness of mycotoxin-related issues in the aquaculture industry has been raised again, mainly due to the increasing inclusion levels of plant meals in aquafeeds .  Most mycotoxin exposure reported ge neral clinical manifestations due to mycotoxin ingestion are related to a reduction in growth performance and in some cases alteration of blood parameters or immunosuppression. To the best of our  knowledge, this is the fi rst experiment to investigate the effects of  aflatoxins, fumonisins and deoxynivalenol combined in diets for Nile tilapia.

The aim of this study was to  evaluate the efficacy  of algo -clay complex (ACC)  on the toxicological effects  on performance on Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus) fed mycotoxin policontaminated diet for 30 days. Fish were assigned to 3 treatments and 4 replicates (15 fish/tank) in  an indoor recirculating system . The fish were fed an isonutritive diet formulated according to the NRC (2012) , using corn, soybean and meat meal, and vitaminic and mineral premixes .  Raw material and experimental diets were screened for the presence of mycotoxins (aflatoxins, zearalenone, deoxynivalenol, fumonisins, diacetoxyscirpenol, T-2 Toxin and ochratoxin A) and nothing was detected. Experimental diets differed only by the mycotoxins and/or ACC inclusions : T1-Control; T2-Policontanation and T-3 Policontamination+ACC . The mycotoxin policontaminated diets included aflatoxins 50 ppb, fumonisins 1000 ppb and deoxynivalenol 2000 ppb all combined. ACC was included at  2 kg/T in  diet T3. Body weight was recorded at day one, fifteen and thirty during the feeding trial obtained by weighing each fish individually.

The  exposure to  mycotoxin policontaminated diet impaired the fish growth by 6% after 30 days meanwhile th e inclusion of  2  kg/T of ACC  mitigated  toxic effects on body weight (p= 0.0268) . These results highlight the potential efficacy of algo -clay complex to mitigate the toxicity of aflatoxins, fumonisins and deoxynovalenol  combined on performance of Nile tilapia.