Supplementation of prebiotics in fish feed: a review

Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. There is a need for enhanced disease resistance, feed efficiency and growth performance of cultured fish species. The cost of production are likely to be reduced if growth performance and feed efficiency are increased in commercial aquaculture. Also if the survivility of the fishes increase, then their overall production cost would be remarkably reduced. Dietary supplementation of different feed additives e.g. immunostimulants, probiotics and prebiotics usually in small quantities for the purpose of fortifying it with certain nutrients have been found to be beneficial for improving immune status, feed efficiency and growth performance of crustaceans and finfishes. The present article was constructed to highlight the effect of dietary prebiotics on different body growth parameters of fish. However, the application of prebiotics and supplementary enzymes in fish feed is now gradually gaining importance in commercial aquaculture practices, the article stresses on the effect of prebiotics on live body weight gain, dressing percentage, weight of vital organs and muscles and mean villus lengths in digestive tract of fish along with their application as growth promoters in commercial aquafeed (Gatesoupe in Aqua Feeds Formul Beyond 2(3):3–5, 2005; Ganguly et al. in Israeli J Aquac Bamidgeh 62(3):130–138, 2010a, Fish Chimes 30(7):64, 2010b).