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alternatives to fish meal: industry news

I recommend a recent article from TheFishSite.com, an aquaculture industry website:

"Research on Alternative Raw Feed Materials"

(http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/1290/research-on-alternative-raw-feed-materials)

As someone who, like many here, doesn't come to aquaponics from the aquaculture industry, I find it interesting to know what's going on with feed from the industry perspective. Seems like motivated small aquaponics operators can directly produce at least some of their own alternatives (duckweed, worms, BSFL, etc.), but for larger scale operations, perhaps that’s not practical. And if fishmeal production needs to be minimized for environmental reasons, then what happens in the commercial fish feed industry is very important.

Plus, the industry has more financial resources to conduct research, and some of the info they put out can be useful to us. : )

One thing I found curious was that the article mentions soy, insects, worms, farm animal by-products, etc., but there's no specific mention of black soldier fly, which is so prominent in aquaponics circles.

The article is attributed to TheFishSite.com only; no individual author is listed.

Another recent article from the same source went into some more detail about one substitute, soy:

"Substitutes for Fishmeal: Soybean Meal"

(http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/1289/substitutes-for-fishmeal-soybean-meal)

Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on any of this.

PS: I previously posted these in the Organic/Natural Fish Feed group, but was probably wrong to post the full text of the articles; and the topic probably fits this group better.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Izzy on February 11, 2012 at 11:23am

Excellent. Thanks for sharing!

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 13, 2012 at 8:18am

Haven't read the article but I would wish to reduce the amount of soy and corn used in the fish feeds actually. See Soy and Corn are rather poor on the omega 3/6 balance and by feeding those heavily to our animals, we wind up with flesh that is rather poor in the ratio as well.

Now I'm definitely interested in the studies that show replacement of fish meal with things like worm meal, insect meal, BSFL meal and so on and I know there have been studies testing out algae replacements as well.

Permalink Reply by George on March 17, 2012 at 6:32am

Animal By-products in fish food - another way to sell agricultural waste. The fish food version of pink slime.

Permalink Reply by Pices on March 20, 2012 at 11:29am

Has anyone set up a whirling string device with a light? My recollection is that the light attracts insects and the whirling string knocks them down to the water where the fish eat them. My system is not operational yet, but I am very interested in alternative or at least supplemental feed sources.

Permalink Reply by steve on March 22, 2012 at 7:29am

There are some sustainable species of fish that could be used in fish meal and feed. Including detrimental and undesirable species in freshwater lakes and rivers, such as Carp, Sheephead, Shad and other non native invasive species. These can be removed from lakes, improving water conditions and provide food and feed. There could be accumulation of heavy metals or contaminants in the use of any fish based feed.

Permalink Reply by Paul Trudeau on March 22, 2012 at 9:10am

Steve, I like your train of thought. Along those lines, at the Aquaculture America 2012 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA earlier this month, there was a study submitted entitled "FISH MEAL AS A POTENTIAL END USE OF INVASIVE ASIAN CARP FROM THE ILLINOIS RIVER" by John Bowser (bowzer.john@siu.edu) and Jesse Trushenski. I have their abstract if anyone wants it, or you could contact them for the full study. They concluded that "Asian carp meal is a suitable high-value feedstuff and source of LC-PUFA for aquafeeds if precautions are taken to stabilize the product during storage." There apparently were many other sessions related to diet and nutrition as well, including alternative feed ingredients.

Permalink Reply by steve on March 22, 2012 at 1:29pm

Those Asian carp have been dangerous in many cases as they jump up and hit people. Besides competing with native fish starting at the bottom of the food chain. They can be eaten also but would leave lots of remnants for fish meal. Kind of far out there for most of us, but just wanted to mention some options. If the world becomes hungrier we will need some.