Sustainable Marine Aquaculture

SUSTAINABLE TANK AQUACULTURE RECIRCULATING RESEARCH (STARR) FACILITY

Research Team:
Tim Pfeiffer (USDA) - Principle Investigator
Marty Riche (USDA) - Principle Investigator
James Webb (HBOI) - Principle Investigator
Megan Davis (HBOI)
David Wood (HBOI)

Due to a number of constraints, aquaculture research is often conducted at 'laboratory' scale. It is always uncertain whether results from these studies are valid at 'commercial' scale. The 10,000 square foot STARR facility provides a location to test hypotheses within a production setting.

The STARR facility houses thirty-two 2,000-gallon tanks divided between 8 individual systems. A quarantine facility, refrigerated feed storage building, water pre-treatment system and a liquid oxygen tower support the fish culture operations. Research in progress in the STARR facility includes:

• Assessment of diets with alternative protein sources on the production of hybrid striped bass
• Characterization of power wash bead filter and low space bioreactor biofiltration systems
• Hydrodynamic modeling of low space bioreactors
• Characterization of solids removal through swirl separation and drum filtration
• Determination of the electrical and water requirements for production scale systems

Recent STARR Study: Effect Of Fish Meal Replacement With Poultry Meal In Hybrid Striped Bass Diets

Aquaculture feeds, especially those for carnivorous species, are heavily dependent on fish meal and fish oils to meet the animal's protein and lipid requirements. However, the global supply of fish meal will likely remain static or decline because wild caught stocks are being over-fished. Additionally, there is increasing competition among consumer segments for these products. Thus, for the U.S. aquaculture industry to expand and remain competitive, cost-effective and sustainable alternative sources of protein and oil must be identified or developed. One such alternative ingredient that shows promise for use in aquaculture feeds is poultry by-product meal. The objective of this experiment is to assess the potential of poultry by-product meal as replacement for fish meal in hybrid striped bass diets.

Four diets, each containing 45% crude protein made up of varying levels of fish meal (FM) and poultry meal (PM), are being fed to HSB over a grow-out cycle. A control diet containing 100:0 FM/PM will be compared with experimental diets containing an amino acid supplement and a FM/PM ratio of 100:0, 65:35 and 30:70. HSB were stocked into production scale recirculating systems in the STARR facility at an initial weight of about 100 g/fish harvest weight and will be harvested at approximately 900 g/fish. Assessment of the experimental diets will be based on (i) growth, (ii) FCR, (iii) proximate composition, (iv) muscle nitrogen content (v) organ somatic indices, (vi) intraperitoneal fat ratio and (vii) fillet yield.