Skretting Chile unveiled C-Growth, a new pack that enables compensatory growth of farmed fish after a period of changes and fluctuations in environmental variables.

Karina Gajardo, product manager of specialty diets at Skretting, explained that “salmonids, like other species, can suffer stress due to environmental conditions and multifactorial changes, either due to low oxygen, increases in temperature or algae blooms, reducing their growth due to periods of low food consumption, affecting the fish performance.”

The effects of these changes can be compensated using the C-Growth pack, which was evaluated with an assay in the Skretting research center, ARC Pargua, where fish were subjected to variations in temperature and oxygen.

The test had three groups with three replicates. The control group (C-) was kept in optimal conditions – 12°C and 9 mg/L of oxygen. Variations of environmental parameters were applied to the other two groups, one fed with a growth diet (C+) and the other with a growth diet together with C-growth (E). Temperature changes ranged from 12 to 16°C, while the oxygen decreased with daily fluctuations between 4.5-5.5 mg/L. Fish were fed twice a day when oxygen was at its highest concentration, trying to simulate Chilean production conditions when there are adverse environmental conditions. Finally, to evaluate the compensatory growth, fish were maintained for three weeks in optimal conditions.

Skretting’s researchers found an increase in the growth of the C-Growth pack group during the compensatory stage. Activation of the metabolic mechanisms was also found after the stress stages, having the ability to compensate. The C-Growth pack showed better compensatory performance, better SGR and better conversion – FCR was 11.5% lower than C- and 5% lower than C+.

“This product should not be confused with a healthy diet, since this pack is complementary to our different functional solutions aimed at preventing and providing support during challenges that can compromise the health status of fish. The C-Growth pack was created to achieve better compensatory growth and feed conversion after periods of environmental change and stress, for example, our new pack can be used to support fish performance in farms with constant low oxygen or periods where the oxygen fluctuations are a productive problem,” Garjardo concluded.