Role of Vitamin C Supplementation in Alleviation of Aflatoxin- Contaminated Feed of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to illustrate the effects of feeding Nile tilapia fingerlings (Oreochromis niloticus) with low doses of aflatoxins (AFs) with and without vitamin C supplementation to investigate the capac-ity of vitamin C in detoxification. Ten experimental diets were formulated and divided into three categories. The first category included: T1, T4 and T7 feedings included 20, 40 and 80 μg AFs kg−1 feed respectively, while both the second category T2, T5 and T8 and the third category T3, T6 and T9 were treated with contaminated feed with AFs for 57days then both catego-ries shifted to different regime till the conclusion of the experimentation. The second category was fed uncontaminated feed while the third category was fed a supplemented diet with 100 mg Kg-1 of vitamin C. For 113 days the experiment was conducted. The results showed that shifting from a con-taminated diet to an uncontaminated diet (category 2) or adding vitamin C to the contaminated diet (category 3) improved the deterioration that oc-curred in the values of growth performance, biochemical parameters and his-tological disorders caused by AFs. Furthermore, the results from the control group were superior to all the treatments.