IAU Researchers Discover New Fish Food Supplement

In an interview with local Iranian media, Sahar Farahnak, a professor at the Varamin Azad University, said that nanofolic is one of the products made by their company.

“This product is folic acid loaded on chitosan nanoparticles, which we investigated its effects on growth indicators,” she said.

“In our studies, we only focused on rainbow trout, but this product can be utilized for a broader range of fish,” she added.

Pointing to the applications of nanofolic in producing the supplement, she said, “This product is added to fish food, which we did on rainbow trout species. In these studies, several factors such as blood parameters, growth factors, FCR or feed conversion ratio, which are important in aquatic nutrition, were studied. In aquaculture, the food conversion factor means how much food should be fed to a pond of fish to produce one kilo of fish or shrimp.”

Farahnak, who was the executive director of the research project, added that findings showed that if one milligram of nanofolic is added in one kilogram of fish food, it can increase the efficiency of fish breeding ponds.

She went on to note that the amount of nano folic acid in the fish food is very low, but this small amount can have positive effects on the growth and chemical and biochemical factors of the fish blood.

The professor considered the positive antioxidant impact of their supplement as its another advantage in trout breeding, saying, “The findings of this research showed that increasing the level of chitosan-folic acid nanoparticles in formulated fish food will increase the growth rate and has a positive impact on growth indicators.”

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