Recipient Organization
KAMPACHI FARMS, LLC
1 KEAHOLE POINT RD
KAILUA KONA,HI 967402637
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The current dependence of grouper and tuna aquaculture on "wet fish" diets poses challenges for the long term viability and scalability of such aquaculture in the U.S. and internationally. There is a recognized need for alternative feed formulations (those including agricultural oils and proteins, such as soybean meal, soy protein concentrate, wheat and corn gluten, canola, poultry and other animal processing by-products, microalgae, etc.), but these top-end predators are often highly averse to eating conventional hard, extruded pellets; and, in aquaculture, are often fed a diet of "trash fish" bycatch or whole fresh/frozen forage fisheries products such as sardines or pilchards. Continued reliance on these limited, price-volatile, wild-caught "wet fish" resources present a critical constraint to the sustainable expansion of high-end marine aquaculture and its ability to produce healthy, efficiently grown, desirable fish for a growing and increasingly prosperous global population. Kampachi Farms has sought to resolve this issue by adapting the USDA-developed "Formulated Sardine" - a fibrous, high-moisture, soft extruded strip of formulated feed which more closely mimics the texture of natural fish - to high-end marine fish such as groupers and tunas. By switching to a formulated diet, sustainable, scalable agricultural oils and proteins can be incorporated into the diets of these high-value fish, rendering their expanded commercial production both more economically attractive to investors, and more environmentally sound.Phase I research thoroughly demonstrated the feasibility of this concept by conducting palatability and grow-out trials to determine if Formulated Sardines would be accepted by high-value marine carnivores and generate acceptable growth rates attractive to commercial culture. Several experimental formulations of Formulated Sardines were developed and manufactured by USDA ARS fish nutritionist Dr. Frederic Barrows, including the early deployment of a 100% fishmeal-free blend, which became the focus of grow-out trials during this study. All experimental diets were formulated to be nutritionally suitable for the two species tested: the relatively sedentary Giant Grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus) and the more active kampachi (Seriola rivoliana). Growth, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and feed waste metrics were compared between populations of both species fed wet fish diets, pelleted diets and Formulated Sardines. The results of these trials were promising, with Formulated Sardines accepted by both grouper and yellowtail at comparable rates to their standard feeds, producing no significant differences in growth performance or FCR. The fact that these results were attained with a 0% fishmeal formulation, months to years ahead of when that development was expected, only underscores the Formulated Sardine feed format's potential for commercial utility in the culture of high-value marine finfish such as grouper and tuna. The apparent palatability of these diets in Grouper and Yellowtail studies also suggests several additional areas across the hatchery production cycles of these species where Formulated Sardine-type diets could provide significant advantages over traditional feeds.Kampachi Farms therefore proposes, through this Phase II research, to bring this novel aquafeed format closer to commercial viability by expanding into trials with Pacific Bluefin and Yellowfin Tunas, assessing its efficacy in specialty formulated broodstock diets, and determining the effectiveness of a derivative soft "crumble" product in accelerating weaning of highly prey-selective, difficult-to-rear marine finfish larvae onto formulated feeds.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The current dependence of grouper and tuna aquaculture on "wet fish" diets poses challenges for the long term viability and scalability of such aquaculture in the U.S. and internationally. There is a recognized need for alternative feed formulations (those including agricultural oils and proteins, such as soybean meal, soy protein concentrate, wheat and corn gluten, canola, poultry and other animal processing by-products, microalgae, etc.), but these top-end predators are often highly averse to eating conventional hard, extruded pellets; and, in aquaculture, are often fed a diet of "trash fish" bycatch or whole fresh/frozen forage fisheries products such as sardines or pilchards. Continued reliance on these limited, price-volatile, wild-caught "wet fish" resources present a critical constraint to the sustainable expansion of high-end marine aquaculture and its ability to produce healthy, efficiently grown, desirable fish for a growing and increasingly prosperous global population. Kampachi Farms has sought to resolve this issue by adapting the USDA-developed "Formulated Sardine" - a fibrous, high-moisture, soft extruded strip of formulated feed which more closely mimics the texture of natural fish - to high-end marine fish such as groupers and tunas. By switching to a formulated diet, sustainable, scalable agricultural oils and proteins can be incorporated into the diets of these high-value fish, rendering their expanded commercial production both more economically attractive to investors, and more environmentally sound.Phase I research thoroughly demonstrated the feasibility of this concept by conducting palatability and grow-out trials to determine if Formulated Sardines would be accepted by high-value marine carnivores and generate acceptable growth rates attractive to commercial culture. Several experimental formulations of Formulated Sardines were developed and manufactured by USDA ARS fish nutritionist Dr. Frederic Barrows, including the early deployment of a 100% fishmeal-free blend, which became the focus of grow-out trials during this study. All experimental diets were formulated to be nutritionally suitable for the two species tested: the relatively sedentary Giant Grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus) and the more active kampachi (Seriola rivoliana). Growth, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and feed waste metrics were compared between populations of both species fed wet fish diets, pelleted diets and Formulated Sardines. The results of these trials were promising, with Formulated Sardines accepted by both grouper and yellowtail at comparable rates to their standard feeds, producing no significant differences in growth performance or FCR. The fact that these results were attained with a 0% fishmeal formulation, months to years ahead of when that development was expected, only underscores the Formulated Sardine feed format's potential for commercial utility in the culture of high-value marine finfish such as grouper and tuna. The apparent palatability of these diets in Grouper and Yellowtail studies also suggests several additional areas across the hatchery production cycles of these species where Formulated Sardine-type diets could provide significant advantages over traditional feeds.Kampachi Farms therefore proposes, through this Phase II research, to bring this novel aquafeed format closer to commercial viability by expanding into trials with Pacific Bluefin and Yellowfin Tunas, assessing its efficacy in specialty formulated broodstock diets, and determining the effectiveness of a derivative soft "crumble" product in accelerating weaning of highly prey-selective, difficult-to-rear marine finfish larvae onto formulated feeds.
Project Methods
7.1 Feed formulation and packagingAll feed formulation and manufacturing work will be conducted by Dr. Frederic Barrows and his team at the USDA-ARS Feed and Nutrition Lab at the Fish Technology Center in Bozeman, MT.Stability trialA small sample batch of Formulated Sardines including a chemical mold inhibitor (propionic acid), will be manufactured and packaged into three retort pouches, and then autoclaved to sterilize and stabilize the product. These packages, along with an un-stabilized quantity of frozen Formulated Sardines (the original Phase I formula) will then be shipped to Kampachi Farms, where a short shelf stability trial will assess this approach's success. Once in Hawaii, the pouches will be stored in refrigeration (<40F), an air-conditioned storage trailer(~75F), and under ambient atmospheric conditions (~85F) for a period of two weeks. After this storage trial, the pouches will be opened and assessed for product degredation and rancidity (via peroxide analyses). The frozen untreated diet will be defrosted, and a short acceptance trial using four tanks of juvenile Kampachi will be conducted to ensure that the treated feeds are accepted at the same rate as the untreated diet. The opened pouches will then be clipped closed and placed in a refrigerator for one week. The pouches will be checked for mold growth daily7.2 Tuna acceptance and feeding efficiency trials To determine the suitability of the Formulated Sardine for use in Yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) and Pacific Bluefin (Thunnus orentalis) tuna culture, Kampachi Farms will collaborate with Dr. Barbara Block and staff of the Tuna Research and Conservation Center at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in Monterrey, CA to conduct palatability trials similar to those accomplished in Phase I for grouper and kampachi. Dr. Block and her team maintain a 7500-sq-ft facility at TRCC which has been designed to house up to twenty captive Yellowfin and Pacific Bluefin tunas in separate 109,000L tanks. Tank-acclimated tuna will be implanted with archival body temperature monitoring tag (Lotek and Amitrix technology). The project team will record and analyze the thermal signatures of each animal during feeding to obtain estimates of the energy delivered by tuna-optimized Formulated Sardines over the course of a 3-4 week palatability/acceptance trial. Total feed consumption and wastage will also be measured and recorded. These metrics will be compared with archival values from fish fed the standard wet fish and squid diet, which are well-described in previous studies. If consumption and energy delivery rates are acceptable, the research will move on to more precise specific dynamic action analyses. Individual tuna will be hand-fed a known quantity of Formulated Sardines while researchers watch from an over-tank gantry and record the exact amount ingested. A settling period of around two hours will be allowed after which the fish be captured in a sling and transferred to a Loligo Systems flume tank respirometer which will measure metabolic oxygen consumption over the course of the post-prandial period (up to 24 hours). Each individual in the captive populations will be measured, and this data compared to a large body of archival metabolic data from previous studies using wet fish diets.7.3 Broodstock conditioning trials12 wild mature Seriola rivoliana broodstock (six males and six females) will be captured using the standard hook-and-line protocol, and transferred into oxygenated totes for delivery to Kampachi Farms' research facility. The fish will be stocked into two 68,000L HDPE tanks (three males and three females per tank) and put through a three-week hyposalinity quarantine. After the broodstock fish have started eating regularly, one of the tanks will be transitioned onto the Formulated Sardine feed, while the other remains on the traditional wet fish diet. This regimen will be maintained for the remainder of the project, to allow the fish to become acclimated to their captivity, to reach spawning condition, and to establish a reproductive history over the course of approximately 12-18 months in captivity. After the fish begin spawning (usually 3-6 months after capture), Kampachi Farms researchers will measure, record, and compare spawn frequency, spawn quality (% viability), fecundity, and hatch rate for both broodstock groups. If, by the end of one year of conditioning, the broodstock population being fed the Formulated Sardine diet is producing spawns at least of a quantity and quality consistent with the control group, then specialty marine finfish broodstock feeds may be selected as an area of concentration for Formulated Sardine commercialization.7.4 Larval weaning trialsGiant Grouper broodstock will be maintained as per routine until four days prior to the full moon in July 2017, when the grouper will be anaesthetized and injected with Western Chemical OvaRH® (a synthetic salmon GnRH analogue), with a resolving dose of Chorulon® HCG being administered on the day of the full moon. Eggs from the resulting spawn will be hatched and run through Kampachi Farms' standard larval rearing procedure, until about 15 days post-hatch, when the larvae are consuming only live Artemia brine shrimp. At this point, the larvae will be split evenly into six one-ton (1000L) tanks. Three of these tanks will start receiving Otohime B1, an industry-standard powdered microdiet, and three will start receiving a high-moisture micro-crumble manufactured at the Bozeman FTC. As the weaning process progresses, and the size of the artificial diets administered increases, twice-daily larval samples will be taken from each tank and analyzed under a dissecting microscope to determine gut content composition over time. Under Kampachi Farms' larval rearing SOP's, gut content analysis is what drives the weaning schedule; as the fish grow and become acclimated to artifical feeds, the ratio of Artemia to artifical feeds found in the gut declines, and the ration of Artemia administered to the tank is reduced. If the soft-textured high-moisture crumbles are indeed more effective than traditional dry microdiets, we would expect to see the weaning process completed more rapidly in that treatment. In addition to this assessment, researchers will measure and record larval growth rate and survival over the course of the trial. Resulting fingerlings will be randomized and transferred into six 4000L HDPE trial tanks for a 2-month post-larval growout trial. Three of these tanks will be administered larger Formulated Sardine crumbles (1.5-4mm dia) and three will be administered a minced wet fish diet. Growth rate, feed conversion ratio, and survival will be recorded.