Can supplemented diets reduce stress in cultured fish? Effects of inclusion of a natural additive with “relaxing effects” in Seriola dumerili under ras conditions

Abstract

Aquaculture is a productive area in continuous growth, where the constant search of new potential cultured species is a key factor for its industry development. Thus, inside the genus Seriola that include 12 species, the greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili) is considered the one of the species with the highest potential for aquaculture (Corriero et al., 2021). However, actually, there are many biological and zootechnical aspect to optimize for its industry expansion. Among this factor, the study of stress in fish has significantly increased in the last years, mainly due to its close connection to animal welfare. Based in the growing researches aimed to the use of dietary additives in fish stress mitigation (Herrera et al., 2019), the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the inclusion of a relaxing additive (RELAQUAX) provided by BEDSON S.A. (Málaga, Spain) in the daily aquafeeds about the growth performance, metabolism and welfare of S. dumerili cultured to a medium stocking density, established in a previous trial, and later subjected to a thermal challenge under RAS conditions.