Effects of dietary vitamin K on survival, growth, and tissue concentrations of phylloquinone (PK) and menaquinone-4 (MK-4) for juvenile abalone, Haliotis discus hannai Ino.

The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary vitamin K on survival, growth and tissue vitamin K concentrations of abalone, Haliotis discus hannai. Eight purified diets were formulated to provide a series of graded levels of menadione sodium bisulfite (MSB) (0-320 mgkg(-1) diet). The brown alga, Laminaria japonica, was used as a control diet. Abalone juveniles of similar size (mean weight 1.18+/-0.04 g; mean shell length 18.65+/-0.18 mm) were distributed in a flow-through system using a completely randomized design with nine treatments and three replicate groups per treatment. Animals were hand-fed the appropriate diets once daily at 17:00 for a 120-day period. Survival and carcass composition were not significantly affected by the dietary treatments (P>0.05). Significantly lower growth rate was found in abalone fed diet supplemented with antibiotic (suphaguanidine) than in those fed the other diets, but no significant difference in growth rate related to dietary level of MSB was observed. The concentrations of menaquinone-4 (MK-4) in muscle and viscera increased with increasing dietary MSB up to 10 mgkg(-1). No phylloquinone (PK) was detected in tissues except that the abalone fed the control diet, Laminaria japonica, produced a relatively high level of PK. It seemed to be that the 10-mg MSBkg(-1) diet is sufficient to that allowing the maintenance of 'steady-state' tissue concentration in juvenile abalone. Dietary MSB was converted to MK-4 in abalone. Either MK-4 or PK deposited in the body is derived from food.