Viability of Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14 included in spray-dried microdiets for fish larvae

Despite that, probiotics in fish feeds have shown positive growth and survival results in several freshwater and marine fish species; maintaining probiotic viability in dry feed has been a challenge, especially regarding spray-dried microdiets, although it is assumed that the nature of the process has the potential to encapsulate and protect probiotics with minimal chemical modification. Nevertheless, scarce information exists about the influence of the process and microdiet handling conditions. Therefore, this study evaluated the effect of the spray-drying process, storage time, and marine water exposure on the viability of L. acidophilus encapsulated in microdiets. The results suggest that spray-dried microdiets, including L. acidophilus La-14, can be stored for up to 6 months at 4 ºC maintaining an adequate CFU count (> 10 9 ) and can be used as a probiotic supplement in microdiets for marine and freshwater fish larvae. This raises the possibility of implementing new feeding strategies, such as using enriched microdiets with probiotic strains capable of resisting salinity and long-term storage, which can have an essential application for the aquafeed industry.