Most of fish feed pellet in market is low in terms of water stability and easily swell when it is immersed in water. Thus, the soluble vitamins and minerals will be easily leached out from the pellet. These will lead to the nutrient deficiency and environmental problems in fish tanks or ponds. Therefore, a study was conducted to minimise the degree of swelling and mineral leaching while the floating time is maximised. For these purpose several formulations of fish feed were made and tested. The formulation was based on common resources such as corn flour, soy flour and tapioca flour. To get water stability which is better floating time and lower leach ability, palm oil stearin was added as a main subject compound for this study. The result shows there is a relationship between fish feed formulation and properties of fish feed pellet produced. The optimum of the floating time, leach ability and stability of fish feed pellet also can be obtained.

What is the optimum formulation of fish feed pellets

Thirty formulations of fish feed were prepared from corn flour, soy flour, tapioca flour and stearin with drying temperature 80 to 100°C. It was found that the change in drying temperature only influence the swelling properties of fish feed pellet. Swelling decreases as composition of tapioca and stearin increases at drying temperature of 80°C. Corn was the component that significantly increases swelling. As drying temperature increases up to 100°C, the opposite trend was found for the effect of composition towards swelling. Mineral leaching from the feed pellet was mainly controls by tapioca flour. Mineral leaching from pellets increases as composition of tapioca flour increases. Stearin and corn flour gives a less effect to the mineral leaching from pellet as compared to other components. Floating ability of feed pellet was mainly influenced by tapioca and soy, while stearin gives the least. This may due to the high processing temperature. Stearin might be melted and leached out from the pellet. Numerical optimisation was conducted using RSM and found the optimum formulation consist of 40.50% corn, 14.00% soy, 7.00% stearin and 38.00% tapioca with 90.39°C drying temperature.

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