Aquaculture feed or aqua nutrition has to be of the highest quality or standard to ensure profitable marine livestock production. To grow rapidly and remain healthy while being reared in high density, fish require a nutritionally complete, high-quality, and balanced diet. As aquaculture operations across the globe have expanded from small pond farms to extensive businesses, the demand for aquaculture feed has also increased substantially.
For a constant stream of nutritious feed, industries and small scale fishing farmers count on reputed fish feed suppliers. In our guide below, we discuss a few things that you need to know about aquaculture feed.
The Basics
Aquaculture nutrition or feed is a nutritious supply that fish and other forms of marine life require to be healthy, grow and become viable livestock products. Nutrients, including protein, carbohydrates, lipids and fats, vitamins and minerals, provided by aquaculture feed play an integral role in encouraging their reproduction.
Types of Aquaculture Feed
Aquaculture feed or fish feed additives come in two types – extruded bits and pressure-pelleted feed. The former type floats on the water; whereas, the latter one sinks. The majority of marine life eats both the types and others like shrimps consume only the pressure-pelleted feed that sinks. The extruded feeds are more expensive than the pressure-pelleted ones, but they do offer an added advantage. Producers can directly observe eating patterns and behaviors of the fish, which they cannot in the case of fish feed that sinks.
What is the Ideal Size of Aquaculture Feed?
Aquaculture feed comes in many different sizes, but the largest possible feed size is ideal for your fishes. If the feed is too small, your fishes will have to waste a lot of time finding tiny bits. On the other hand, large pellets pose a choking hazard to them. Therefore, the biggest sized feed pellets are ideal, as fishes can find them easily and break them to make their size smaller.
How to Distribute Aquaculture Feed?
You have two options here – either feed your aquatic animals by hand or using an automated feeder. To make the correct choice, you can consider the needs of your livestock operation and your resources. To ensure consistent and proper distribution of aqua nutrition, some large farms also use leaf blowers to disperse feed over large areas. Fish farms also use demand feeders that release a set amount of feed whenever triggered. However, these feeders often result in over-consumption of feed and wasted feed.
What is the Biggest Factor to Examine While Choosing Aquaculture Feed?
The protein requirement of the marine life you are rearing is the most important factor that you must consider while making a choice. Different aquaculture animals have different nutritional needs. For example, herbivorous fish consume plant-based proteins; whereas, carnivorous fish require a feed that can provide it with as much protein as it gets from the wild. In other words, every aquaculture feed is not ideal for every fish. You have to carefully pick species-specific feeds to ensure the highest aquaculture nutrition.
You can go through the normal protein consumption levels of different marine species:
●28-32% for catfish
●35-40% for shrimp
●24-32% for tilapia
●38-42% for striped bass
Younger and smaller fish require more protein in comparison to the larger and older fish. Other factors that increase or decrease the protein demand in marine life are the water temperature, water quality, breeding environment, cold and dirty environments.
How to Store Aquaculture Feed?
Just like other forms of livestock feed, aquaculture feed also has to be stored in cool and dry places. High-quality bags and boxes should be used and they should be checked now and then for the presence of bacteria, mold, pests, and moisture. Whenever you take out a fish feed bag from the storage, make sure you first use the old ones. For protecting aquaculture feed during storage and enhancing its shelf life, you can count on high-quality fish feed additives.
