Artificial Fish Feed Types

Artificial fish food is usually prepared as floating or buoyant or sinking

food. Both types of food help in the satisfactory growth of fish but some
fish species prefer floating food while some species prefer drowning food.
Shrimp do not eat floating food but most fish species are quite adept at
eating floating pellets. It is quite expensive as the production cost of
floating food is high. One of the advantages of this type of food is that the
fish farmer can easily observe the food intake of fish directly and can also
determine the rate of food accordingly. It is very important to determine
whether the rate of food intake is too high or too low for maximum
growth of fish and food utilization efficiency.

Variations in the size of the fish diet are observed. In particular, it ranges
from a fine piece to a large pellet. The size of the pellet is usually 20-30%
of the mouth of the fish species. In order to eat small size pellets, the fish
has to find a large number of pellets, which consumes a lot of time and
energy. So the pellets are usually of medium size.

Different types of artificial food are used in intensive and semi-intensive

fish farming. Two types of artificial foods are commonly used, viz

1. Dry Feeds
2. Non-dry feeds
1. Dry Feeds

This type of food is made with dry food ingredients or a mixture of dry
or moist ingredients. Usually this type of food is not completely moisture
free, it usually contains 8-10% water and it depends on the environmental
conditions. This type of food is usually free of bacterial infections. Such
food is divided into two types, viz

(A) Mashes or Meals: Foods that are made with very common dry food
ingredients are called Mashes or meals.

(B) Pellets: Foods that are dry and have a certain size are called pellets.

Table: Formula for making dry food of shrimp (Penaeus monodon)

Ingredients Amount(%)
Shrimp meal 15
 Ingredients Amount(%)
Fish meal 30
Soybean meal 15
Rice bran 15
Wheat flour 15
Starch 5
Oil Fish liver and soybean oil(1:1) 4
Vitamin/mineral mixed 0.95
Vitamin C 0.05

2. Non-dry Feeds

There are usually two types of non-dry feeds, such as wet or moist.
Usually wet food is made up of different types of wet ingredients such as
fresh or frozen, whole, shredded or abandoned fish, other wastes
including cattle slaughter blood and non-dry vegetable ingredients etc.
The fish used to make wet food are herring, caplin, mackerel, blue
whiting and sand lance. This type of food is more or less made from
squid or other marine animals. This type of food contains 45-70%
moisture. The use of such foods has declined to a large extent due to the
increase in the production and use of formulated foods. Wet food is
mainly used for certain marine species. The harmful side of such food is
that it contaminates the water. As a result of consuming such food, many
disease germs are transmitted through it. Due to the variation in the size
of such food, more food is wasted which contributes to water pollution,
so the use of such food is regulated in different countries, especially on
freshwater farms.

Moist food is made with a mixture of dry and wet ingredients or when it
is made with dry ingredients it is mixed with water. All these foods
contain 18-40% moisture. Some species of fish prefer moist foods to dry
foods. This type of food is widely used in salmon hatcheries.

Non-dry foods, especially moist and wet, tend to be pellet, ball or cake
shaped. Both types of food are made with a combination of vitamins,
minerals, oils and additives.
 Table: Common carp’s ingredients and proportions needed to make moist
food for common carp

The benefits:
1,to reduce the factors of water pollution and increase the water quality
deterioration.
2,to prevent water soluble nutrients in the water,improve the utilization
rate of feed, and reduce the feed coefficient.
3, mixed into disease prevention drugs as additives, from the role of
disease prevention.

Food Ingredients Amount (%)

Pasteurized fish (Herring, caplin) 44
Fish meal 22
Soybean meal 12
Wheat flour 14.1
Choline chlorode 0.4
Vitamin premix 1
Mineral premix 0.5
Fish oil 6