Rising fish feed costs require increased efficiency, capture and reuse of nutrients. This project explored development of warmwater fish diets which seek both efficiency in assimilation into fish biomass and at the same time, functionally enhance solids collection by coagulating fish fecal material. An extruded, floating ration with a binder helped improve solids capture and removal. Hybrid catfish were the best species for this study, as they demonstrate desirable feed efficiency and production traits in densely stocked IPRS production systems. Previously, fish excretion has been left in the pond environment to be assimilated through naturally-occurring biological and chemical processes. Nutrient removal data were collected, entered into a database and used to analyze nutrient collection.

Key Audience:
Aquaculture feed producers, engineers