World Aquaculture Singapore 2022

November 29 - December 2, 2022

Singapore

A NEW PARADIGM OF NURSERY FEEDING: CASE OF TILAPIA

Gaetan Gutter*, Thomas Raynaud**, Navid Pormehr, Frederic Baron, Delphine Weissman

 

Bern Aqua NV

Hagelberg 3

B-2250 Olen

Belgium

 

gaetan.gutter@adm.com

thomas.raynaud@adm.com

 



The introduction of a nursery phase is becoming a regular practice in aquaculture farming. A complete diet formulation is required to reach fish nutrients requirement at this critical and stressful phase for the fish before the transfer practice at grow-out ponds.

A new generation of nursery feed is better adapted to the natural metabolism of the animal with a balance between animal and plant components in the function of each specie. About tilapia, a new approach with some marine sources ingredients (such as algae, krill, squid, etc.) with high levels of digestibility, organic acids and immunostimulant added to the diet can provide a better performance in nutrition and health.  With this new formulated nursery feed, containing less protein than a classic competitor feed, we can demonstrate that the quality of protein content is more important than the quantity of protein. This allows us to have a more sustainable offer to reduce the waste of protein.

Moreover, keeping this sustainable approach, to counter the impacting effects of stress, BernAqua (a company of ADM group) has developed a feed concept that improves the digestibility of feed and improve the health of animal: Life Defense.

Life Defense is a blend composed of feed additives intended to help fish to better cope with stress. It is a triple action formula acting at the intestinal level which finality is to improve absorption of nutrients during stress events and optimize gut function. Life Defense is included in WeaN Prime, a nursery feed for tilapia produced by BernAqua and the addition  of this feed additives blend to support technical and economic performance at the farm level shows excellent results.