Pangasius farmers in Indonesia have been struggling to reach beyond its tipping point for profit. The value chains of Pangasius aquaculture industry have been inefficient due to various and complex reasons. Improving performance of fish at farm level through better feed conversion ratio (FCR) and daily growth was targeted. Despite variety of Pangasius feeds in the market, but none of them were using U.S. soymeal inclusion in the diet. USSEC Indonesia aquaculture program, in collaboration with cooperator feed mill and farmer, held a feeding demonstration project to show superior quality of U.S. soymeal in the diet for Pangasius hypophthalmus performance in grow-out farm.
The project was held at Sumbergempol, Tulungagung, Indonesia and was using two feed comparisons with three replicates. Six ponds averaging 245 m3 were stocked with 5,000 Pangasius fingerlings sizing 7.7. g/fish and raised to reach 700 g minimum sizes. All ponds were treated similarly in terms of feedings, water exchange, limings, and such. After 266 days, all ponds were harvested and fishes were weighted to estimate total biomass and average survival rates. Total cumulative feeds per pond were also calculated to estimate FCR. The performance of Pangasius in all demonstration ponds is provided in Table 1 below.
The project showed that Pangasius fed with USSEC-formulated diets had higher average SR (83.5%) and lower FCR (1.38) in average, compared to SR and FCR of Pangasius in control ponds (74.0% and 1.53 respectively). When analyzing the nutritional content of both feeds used in the project, there were slight differences in the composition of essential amino acids as provided in Table 2 below.
USSEC formulated feeds slightly had more lysine and methionine compared to control feeds. Lysine has been known to improve growth, physiological function, and protein synthesis, as well as metabolism for muscle growth.