“The juvenile stage is the major feed cost for the hatcheries and it is extending with the trend towards keeping the juveniles in land tanks until they reach 20g” says Eamonn O’Brien, Product Manager for Skretting Marine Hatchery Feeds. “Original mini pellets worked very well however we wanted to see if there were opportunities for fine tuning in accordance with the developments of farming methods. A series of trials have thus been performed by Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre with both species in Spain and focused on 3 main issues: to investigate if there was a significant difference in the nutritional needs of sea bass and sea bream, to investigate if we were over- or under providing any nutrients and finally, to bring the formulation of the final hatchery feed closer to that of an ongrowing feed.
“Trials helped resolve all these important issues and proved that while there is a difference in nutritional needs, it was not significant and a slight increase in protein content is beneficial while a significant reduction in the fat content does not detract from fish performance or fish health. The formulation of our final diet before transfer – Perla MP-T – is now closer to the first ongrowing Optibass or Optibream diet.”
Perla MP comes in three pellet sizes (1.0mm, 1.5mm, 1.9mm) and is being launched in the Mediterranean region.