SBIR-STTR Award

If aquaculture is to become an increasing contributor to the food supply, it is critical that aquaculture feeds become less reliant on marine-derived fishmeal and fish oil as the preferred source of essential proteins and lipids. Not only is the wild fishery from which these products are extracted at maximum sustainable levels of harvest, but also there is increasing concern that these feedstocks may contain contaminants and pollutants that have accumulated in the fish from which the fishmeal and fish oil were derived. It is critical; therefore, that aquaculture feeds become less reliant on marine proteins and lipids. Technically, this means finding suitable terrestrial alternatives that are safe for human consumption. Our goal is to develop a strategy for the production of aquaculture feeds that replace marine fishmeal and fish oil with non-marine ingredients. We will demonstrate that the ingredients of prototypical diets currently being tested can perform economically in a standard production environment.

Potential Commercial Applications:
A non-marine-based fishmeal replacement product

The overall goal of this project is to demonstrate that purified shrimp diets that performed well in a fifteen-week preliminary tank-based feeding trial during Phase I, can be prepared as a commercial diet that will grow shrimp without the use of fishmeal and fish oil. This work involves replacing certain components of already proven diets with components that are of non-marine origin. The study was designed to evaluate the effect of fishmeal and fish oil replacement by soybean meal, poultry by-product meal, and algal meal on growth and survival of the Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei in a small scale tank system at a density of 30/M2 and in 0.1 hectare lined ponds at a commercial density of 100-120/M2.

Potential Commercial Applications:
Commercial applications of this technology can range for the direct sales of HUFA algal meals for direct incorporation into diets, the development of a premix that would contain enabling ingredients, or a complete feed. Each of these product development lines would result in products that would enable the production of shrimp grow-out feeds with no marine-sourced ingredients. Such diets would be environmentally sustainable, have stabile commodity pricing of ingredients, and maintain critical levels of Omega 3 HUFAs in animals intended for human consumption