Fish feed comprises of 50 to 60 percent of total cost in aquaculture production. In this video about aquaculture nutrition, I will walk you through the key concepts and criteria which are important to make the fish feed. Either you are buying commercial feed from your local feed mill company, or producing at small scale by yourself this knowledge of fish feed and fish nutrition will help you gain good understanding and will give you the ability to gain better growth potential of the fish you are dealing with and it will increase your ability to manage your fish we will discuss the following in the video series of aquaculture nutrition basic understanding of the fish nutrition and requirements how to make feed from scratch what you need to know to make fish feed fish feed ingredients and nutrients you will also learn how to produce the feed and what are the different processes which goes in the feed production finally you will also learn that how to design a test to test feed for the fish.
So let's start. In this course, we will take Nile Tilapia as the example fish species. The reason we will use Nile Tilapia as an example is because it is one of the most commercially farmed fish and its nutritional requirements are simple and easy to understand.
It will give you greater understanding by mastering the key concepts in tilapia feed and you can build your knowledge further upon that later. So let's talk a little bit about Nile Tilapia. Tilapia is a freshwater fish which is widely farmed in the world, mainly in Asia and Africa as well as other parts of the world.
In China, Tilapia is second largest species of fish which is consumed. As tilapia is cheap, it is considered as an important commercial fish and good protein source for the food security. Tilapia is formed from thousands of years and it is originated from African continent.
Tilapia is sometimes also referred to as biblical fish. as it is believed to be fish mentioned in Bible. Tilapia grows best at water temperature of 26 to 28 degrees Celsius. That's why it is categorized as warm water fish unlike other fish species like trout and salmon which grows best in cold water temperatures.
Tilapia is omnivore fish which can eat both feed from plant to plant. and animal sources. This flexibility makes tilapia a very good fish species to work with, as the ingredients used in the tilapia feed are commonly available. Now let's discuss about the major components of the tilapia feed and their common sources.
Starch, proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins. We will go through them one by one. As you know, you need the energy or starch sources as well as the proteins and fat sources to make the tilapia feed we are talking about.
So what are the sources of these nutrients and how do we know which one to use? In this video, Of course, we will only mention those ingredients which are commonly available. Before we talk about starch sources, by the way, what is starch?
To put it in simple words, starch is the active form of energy. Different fish need different amount of energy. In tilapia diet, Energy comes from the sources of starch as well as from the fats. So back to what are the major sources of starch. Following are the commonly used starch sources in the tilapia field.
Corn, wheat, rice, corn starch and potato starch. Corn, wheat, rice, and rice as well as starch extracted from them are high source of energy which are commonly used in the tilapia feeds. Question arise how do we know how much energy the fish need and how much of each ingredient we need in the feed. After going through the introduction of all the ingredients, we will provide you with the Tilapia Feed formulation.
With the help of that formulation, you will be able to make your own Tilapia Feed. Moreover, you will also be provided with additional material in the form of downloads to help you understand the feed better. So back to ingredients.
What are the sources of proteins in the feed? Protein mainly comes from two different sources, animal sources and plant sources. First we will talk about the plant sources.
Following are the main plant sources for acquiring the proteins for feed. Soybean meal, Guar meal, Corn gluten, potato protein concentrate wheat gluten peas and sugarcane byproducts there are plenty of other plant-based protein sources for the fish feed but we will only stick to the simple ones for your understanding following are the proteins from the animal origins which are the common ones fish meal troll tree feather meal Blood protein meal, animal waste protein meal, seafood byproducts meal, fish silage, and some new ones such as single cell protein, krill meal, insect meal, and many others. Sources of fat for the fish feed.
Following are some of the sources of fat which are used in the fish feed. Fish oil, Soybean oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, algal oil and many others. So far we have gone through the major nutrients which mainly compose the fish feed.
But in the feed not all the requirements of fish nutrition are met and therefore we normally need to add some additional ingredients which are added in the less amount but their ingredients are not included in the feed. fat is bigger and lacking them in the fish feed can result in the poor quality of feed as well as the performance of the fish. Some of such ingredients are following, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, and other functional and micro-ingredients which are beyond the topic of this course.
Selection of the Ingredients There are so many ingredients which we have named in this course so far. But the question is how do we know which one to select and use? Following are some of the points which will help you to choose the ingredients while making your tilapia feed. Quality Quality of the ingredient is the big topic.
There are many aspects which affect the quality of the ingredient when you are choosing. There is normally big variation in the quality of these ingredients depending on the which part of the world you are going to make the field. But some of the common points which you should be keeping in the mind are following.
Use your three senses like touch, smell and Appearance. Study the documentation, if any, carefully. Check the moisture level of the ingredient.
Check for the anti-nutritional factors which are specific for different ingredients. Price of the ingredients and availability is also the factor you must pay attention to.