Effect of Glycyrrhizic Acid on Growth Performance in Meagre (Argyrosomus regius) Juveniles

Abstract

The aquaculture sector is developing in both Mediterranean countries and in our country in parallel with the developing technology. However, the increasing amount of production has also caused new problems. Especially in terms of fish health and product quality improvement, new additives are being defined in the recent days. Glycyrrhizic acid has recently started to be widely used both in human health and in agriculture and aquaculture. n this study, the effects of glycyrrhizic acid on growth as well as acid and alkaline protease activity in juveniles of meagre (Argyrosomus regius), one of the potential new species produced in our country, were investigated. In this study which lasted for 60 days and 3 replicates, total 180 meagre juveniles with an average length of 8.38±0.23 cm and weight of 9.86±0.29 g were fed with 2 different diets in 2 groups as control (0 ml.kg^-1 GA) and experimental group (4 ml.kg^-1 GA). At the end of the experiment, significant differences were found in both feed conversion ratio (FCR) and specific growth rate (SGR) (p<0.01) and acid and alkaline protease activities (p<0.05) obtained from the group to which 4 ml.kg^-1 GA was added. However, no difference was observed between the experimental groups in terms of survival rate (p>0.05). As a result, it was determined that the addition of 4 ml.kg^-1 GA to the feed provided significant positive results in growth performance, enzymatic activity and nutritional parameters in meagre culture