Background

Shrimp farms are increasingly vulnerable to aflatoxin (AF) negative effects as frequent inclusion of plant-based ingredients is used in the diets.

Goals

Evaluate the impact of a bentonite-based AF binder on growth parameters, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and glutathione s-transferase (GST) activities of juvenile Litopenaeus vannamei shrimp fed AF contaminated diets for 42 days.

Methods

Juvenile shrimps were randomly assigned to the following study groups, including a non-contaminated diet (NCD), an AF contaminated diet (ACD), and ACD supplemented groups with either 1, 1.5 or 2 g/kg feed of Mycofix Plus (MyP), a clay-based mycotoxin binder that contains bentonite, enzymes, algae, and plants extracts.

Results

Shrimp from ACD had a significantly lower mean weight, growth rate, feed intake and nitrogen retention percentage when compared to shrimp from the NCD group. All MyP treatments resulted in similar mean weight, growth rate and nitrogen retention efficiency to NCD animals, at the same time, only the ACD + 1 and ACD + 1.5 MyP had ALP and GST activities similar than that of shrimp fed NCD. Interestingly, shrimp from ACD + 2 MyP had high ALP and GST activities, even higher than the ACD animals.

Conclusions

MyP protected shrimp from adverse AFs effects, however, at the highest dose, it increased metabolic enzyme activities, likely due to other bioactive compounds present in MyP.