April 23, 2008

Experts explore periphyton as alternative tilapia feed

Aquaculture experts are exploring the promotion of periphyton growth as an alternate feed for tilapia.

Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) researchers have found that tilapia naturally feed on algae, bacteria, and small insects or zooplankton, all of which are in the category of periphyton, which has been found to be a natural food resource that contains all necessary fat, protein and energy required for fish growth.

Bill Mebane, superintendent of marine resources aquaculture engineering division, developed with his colleagues methods that encourage the growth of periphyton through using palm leaves, banana leaves, and manure.

This method is unable to compete with fish production that uses commercial feed but it could help people that have limited resources. Fish production using these methods could yield harvest of 6,000 to 9,000 kg per hectare each year.

Tests using these methods were performed on Haitian ponds, and they yielded about 50 percent of their maximum capacity. However, it is an encouraging result as all the fish were raised and harvested using locally available resources for free.

With the right pond techniques in low density fish culture systems, it is possible to get the same fish production using periphyton as using commercial feed, said Mebane.