FUNCTIONAL FEED ADDITIVES IN FINFISH AQUACULTURE: GUT HEALTH, IMMUNITY, AND DISEASE RESISTANCE

Abstrak

The intensification of finfish aquaculture has increased the demand for functional nutritional strategies that support growth, gut health, immune competence, and disease resilience while reducing dependence on antibiotics. This narrative review synthesizes peer-reviewed evidence published between 2020 and 2026 on probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, phytogenic compounds, essential oils, yeast derivatives, beta-glucans, nucleotides, organic acids, enzymes, seaweed metabolites, and multi-component blends. Current evidence indicates that these additives can improve feed utilization, digestive function, gut microbial balance, mucosal immunity, antioxidant defense, and resistance to pathogen challenge. Their effects, however, depend on additive type, dose, formulation stability, feeding duration, fish species, life stage, rearing conditions, and basal diet composition. Rather than treating functional additives as generic supplements, this review emphasizes their selection according to specific biological targets and production constraints. A precision aquafeed approach that integrates mechanistic understanding with dose-response evaluation, formulation stability, economic feasibility, and farm-scale validation is needed to develop safe, reproducible, and practical functional feeds for sustainable aquaculture.