Highly Diluted Bioactive Compounds in Marine Aquaculture: Looking for Sustainable Practices

Aquaculture production still faces high mortality events associated with the emergence and propagation of new diseases mainly related to bad aquaculture practices, organisms’ transportation, and overstocking densities conditions. Traditionally, antibiotics and disinfectants have been used as conventional methods to avoid the presence of pathogens in cultured organisms, but these treatments damage organisms’ health and the environment.

Recently, it has been suggested that highly diluted bioactive compounds (HDBC) can promote an integral response that allows marine organisms to improve their general condition and defense mechanisms, strengthening them against stressful factors (e.g., pathogens). The prophylactic use of these compounds on fish, mollusks and crustaceans have improved organisms’ nutrition, growth, overall condition, defense mechanisms regulation and increased survival during challenge against pathogens. The HDBC used in marine organisms are mainly formulated by Vibrio spp. lysates, sodium metasilicates, phosphoric acid and homeopathic medicines for humans such as Silicea terra®, Phosphoricum acidum®, Passival® and VidatoX®, as well as homotoxic Heel® complexes. These compounds are used at different decimal and centesimal potencies. Because HDBC are innocuous, inexpensive and easy to use, they have been proposed as a potentially sustainable alternative to improve marine organism production under hatchery conditions.

Results suggest that HDBC can be defined as enhancers of marine organisms’ health and strengtheners of the immune response where some compounds have been proposed to avoid massive mortalities of treated organisms by activating their self-defense systems rather than focusing efforts on killing pathogens. The use of HDBC brings a new insight on increasing productivity and cost effectiveness during hatchery operations of marine organisms. Findings in the mode of action of HDBC in Catarina clam using functional genomics will be discussed.

Keywords: Aquaculture, bioactive compounds, marine organisms, sustainable

Publication History

Article published online:
30 January 2024