FEATURE

Soluble phosphorus in salmon feed

by Sissel Albrektsen, senior scientist Nofima

hosphorus (P) is an essential mineral that has to be added

to salmon feed to achieve normal growth and skeletal
development. P from marine ingredients, plant protein
and crystalline P salts provide respectively 46, 30 and 24
percent of dietary P in Norwegian salmon feeds. Hence, fishmeal is
an important P-source, even though the level of fishmeal in the feed
has dropped significantly from 64 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in
2012 (Ytrestoyl et al., 2014). About 40 percent of P in the fishmeal
originates from the bones, and is present as calcium (Ca)-phosphate
salts in hydroxyapatite. P in hydroxyapatite has low solubility and is
poorly available to salmon. The digestibility of P in different fishmeal
reflects this and further shows great variation (20 60 percent),
depending on the fish raw material and seasonal variations. No
reliable direct measure of available P exists, and this makes it
difficult to know how much available P is present in any given fish
feed. In this article we will focus on the possibility of using a new
method on soluble P as a measure of available P in ingredients and
feeds, and what opportunity this gives to ensure better control of
available P in the feeds.
Industrial fish that traditionally has been used as raw material for
fishmeal production, such as herring in the Nordic countries, is today
used for consumption. As a consequence, an increasing amount of
fishery byproducts is used as raw material for fishmeal production. The
global by-product material used for fishmeal and fish-oil production
has been rising by 12 percent year1, and represented 25 percent of
world production in 2010 (Shepherd and Jackson, 2013). In Norway,
fishery byproducts accounted for 30 percent of the raw material in
fishmeal in 2013 (Ytrestoyl et al., 2014). Fishery byproducts contribute
with high content of total P from the fish bones, while at the same
time, the percentage of P that is available for the salmon is actually
reduced compared with a traditional fish meal produced without trimmings. Fig. 1 shows total P and soluble P in herring meal produced
with different levels of trimmings from herring, and other fish meals
produced from blue whiting and capelin and also from Antarctic krill.
High inclusion levels of trimmings reduce the proportion of soluble P

Figure 1: Total P and soluble P in herring meal produced with

0, 41 and 62 % herring offal, in fish meal produced from
blue whiting and capelin, and in Antarctic krill. Soluble P is
also given as % of total P on top of each respective bars

from 61 to 35 percent of total P, which means that the level of soluble

P is reduced despite an increase in total P. The analysis of total P tells
little about the proportion of P that is available for the salmon, i.e. how
much of P that is present as free phosphates, and thereby available for
digestion. The amount of trimmings used in global fishmeal production
varies greatly, from 0 to 100 percent, which increases the unpredictability with respect to how much of dietary P that is available. In some
commercial smolt feeds, total P ranged from 0.7 to 1.77 percent,
soluble P from 0.36 to 0.7 percent and the proportion of soluble P
from 31 to 70 percent of total P.
The plant ingredients used in fish feed today contain 60-80 percent
phytic acid. Phytic acid contains P (phytate-P) but many fish species,
including salmon, has no or little phytase activity and cannot utilise
this P source. Phytic acid also acts as an anti-nutrient by inhibiting
the absorption of available P and other minerals by forming poorly
soluble mineral complex in the intestine. Nofima has analysed total P
and soluble P in many plant proteins (Fig. 2), and the main finding is
that most of the total P in plant proteins will be analysed as soluble
P. The analytical method for soluble P apparently cannot distinguish
between phytate-P and other soluble forms of P in plant proteins.
Total P and the proportion of phytate P and other P-components are
known and quite stable for most plant ingredients. By analysing soluble
P in the plant ingredient, it is easy to correct for the proportion of P
that is present as phytate-P, an approach that is also applied in the
aquafeed industry today. Overall, the method will give much more
reliable measures of available P in salmon feeds and feed ingredients
compared to the current total P analysis.
The P requirement is affected by a variety of biological and
environmental factors, and it can vary with life stage and growth rate
of fish, diet composition and temperature. When available P in the
diet is low, the fish will regulate this by increasing the P uptake in
the intestine, reduce the excretion of P in the kidney, and mobilise
P from the skeleton to cover vital functions in other body compartments. Sustained demineralisation of the bones over a long period will
weaken the skeleton and eventually cause deformity. In fast-growing
Atlantic salmon fed 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 percent soluble P in the diet

Figure 3: Digestibility of total P (A) and soluble P (B) in

Atlantic salmon decrease with increased dietary P levels, and
the utilization of dietary P is most effective in fish fed low
dietary P levels

14 | INTERNATIONAL AQUAFEED | January-February 2015

FEATURE
following seawater transfer, the fish developed 30, 15 and 0 percent deformity in the
lower jaw bone concomitant with increased
mineral content of the spinal bones within a
feeding period of only 12 weeks. In another
smolt trial with similar size fish, reduced mineralisation was found in fish fed 0.5 percent
soluble P in the diet compared to fish fed 0.7
percent soluble P, while no sign of external
deformity was observed. This illustrates the
risk of feeding slightly sub-optimal P (0.5 perFigure 2: Total P and soluble P in plant protein ingredients. Soluble P is also given as %
cent soluble P in the diet), it is cost effective
of total P on top of each respective bars
and environmentally friendly, but may occasionally affect fish welfare due to variation in the fish material, growth not only distinguish between the P in hydroxyapatite and other P-forms,
rate, feed or the environmental conditions which is not easy to control. but can also be used to distinguish between P from inorganic salts with
The digestibility of P depends on dietary P level, irrespective of different solubility, which is the main criterion for P absorption. Monomeasuring total P or soluble P in the feeds. In salmon fed diets with Ca-P salt was found to contain about 65 percent soluble P, while monodifferent P contents, the digestibility of total P varied between 30 and Na-P salt contained more, about 94 percent soluble P, demonstrating
50 percent (Fig. 3a), while the digestibility of soluble P in the same that the mono Na-P salt contain higher levels of available P than mono
feeds were higher and varied between 60 and 80 percent (Fig. 3b). Ca-P despite similar levels of total P. Inorganic mono-salts of P will also
Other trials have shown that the digestibility of soluble P in the feed be more soluble than di-salts of P and this will contribute to different P
can be as high as 90 percent in salmon, indicating a very efficient diges- digestibility and thus different availability of P from the feed. Nofima has
tion of soluble P. The amount of dietary P that is retained (deposited) conducted experiments that indicate that feed that contain 0.7 percent
in the body is about 30 percent, which means that about 70 percent soluble P provide adequate P in salmon at the smolt stage, while a higher
of dietary P will be released to the environment. As this is a major dietary P content of 0.8 percent soluble P is required in Atlantic salmon
global concern, dietary P is usually added close to or slightly below the fry during early start feeding. More research is needed to understand
requirement in order to obtain maximum P utilisation and minimum P the potential for using dietary soluble P when analysing commercial high
load to the environment, as well as to keep the cost as low as possible. plant protein diets with variable phytate levels, although it is possible to
This is a reasonable strategy, but requires better feed control with correct for this. The soluble P method has been developed and validated
available P than is realistic to achieve today by analysing dietary total P. by Nofima and found to have high accuracy, resembling the analytical
The new method distinguishes between insoluble and soluble P, method for total P (Hovde, 2013).
References available on request
which is to be seen as indigestible P and digestible P, respectively. It does

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January-February 2015 | INTERNATIONAL AQUAFEED | 15