A group of Mexican and Brazilian researchers evaluated the influence of a combination of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in fish oil-free diets on the overall performance of Litopenaeus vannamei.

Four isoproteic and isolipidic diets were manufactured to contain lipids from beef tallow, soybean oil, and the fat contained in the ingredients, supplemented at four levels of DHA-Nature™; 0, 1, 1.7, and 2.4 g kg−1, corresponding to: Control; low, L-DHA; medium, M-DHA; and high, H-DHA. DHA-Natur™ (ADM) is a dried heterotrophic algae produced through advanced fermentation technology.

After seven weeks of experimentation, it was revealed that H-DHA treatment, significantly favored the growth performance compared to the Control. In general, the muscle fatty acids reflect the diet composition, with significantly higher DHA deposition, in animals fed the H-DHA diet, in comparison with L-DHA and M-DHA diets. The results pointed out preferential oxidation of L. vannamei by fatty acids included in high concentrations in the experimental diets such as 18:1n-9 and 18:2n-6, those of most representative fatty acids in beef tallow and soybean oil composition, respectively. Inversely, it was observed an accumulation of essential long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially EPA and DHA, even at low levels of FA inclusion.

Read the study here.