June 2, 2009

US nutritionist develops vitamin mix for farmed fish

An Agricultural Research Service (ARS) fish nutritionist has developed an updated, pre-blended vitamin mix for farmed fish so the vitamins can be absorbed more easily.

The mix is a publicly available recipe, and is already being added to fish feeds fed to rainbow trout at fish farms and hatcheries.

Extrusion processing creates heat that can damage some vitamins, but the formula developed by nutritionist Rick Barrows takes this into account and compensates appropriately for estimated losses.

Intensive research and studies over two years helped Barrows to determine the best quantity of each affected vitamin to use in the new premixed formula dubbed "ARS-702".

Barrows went public with the formula in 2007, and since then has been added to more than 700,000 pounds of fish feeds by feedmakers.