HOW TO FORMULATE FISH FEED WITH WATER HYACINTH.

Water hyacinth: how to use it as fish feed. The need to find alternative protein sources to formulate non-traditional fish diets to overcome the high fish meal prices has resulted in many attempts to replace fish meal partially or completely with various plant protein sources.

 Water hyacinth has been discovered as a viable option according to study carried out by Dr. S. A. Vhanalakar and Dr. D. V. Muley, Department of Zoology, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India showing the benefits of water hyacinth as fish feed ingredient. 

 Water hyacinth is one of the most highly productive plants filling up a small area within a short time span as is considered the world's worst aquatic weed. It forms dense mats that interfere with navigation, recreation, irrigation and power generation. These mats competitively exclude native submerged and floating-leaved plants. 

 The rising cost and scarcity of fish meal has prompted studies to find alternatives to the fish meal by using locally available and cheaper ingredients of either animal or plant origin. The success of the aquaculture industry depends worldwide on the availability of low cost, high quality feeds to break even. In the past several studies were carried out to look for substitutes for fish meal in the fish feed. 

Fish nutritionists have evaluated alternative sources of plant origin protein in fish diets as partial or total fish meal replacement. Water hyacinth has been found suitable among other options,as it was found to replace the fish meal at various levels of inclusion without any side effects but rather an increase in fish productivity. . 

 The study carried out using the common carp fed for 120 days. : fresh water hyacinth leaves were collected from local water bodies, these were washed thoroughly with water to remove dirt and debris and drained properly before sun drying. 

The dried leaves of water hyacinth were milled , packed in airtight polyethylene bags and kept in the freezer before use. The inclusion of the dried leaves in the feed was at different rates ranging from (0-70%), groundnut cake, rice bran, fish meal, guar gum binder and mineral/vitamin mixture were all added to formulate the feed. 

 Ingredients were mixed until an homogeneous mass was obtained and with the mincer 0.6 mm pellets were prepared, which were immediately sun dried. The dried pellets were broken up by hand into convenient pellet sizes and frozen before feeding the fish. The water hyacinth diet showed the great usefulness as fish feed ingredient and for cost effectiveness. 

The feed with 40% water hyacinth incorporated diet showed best growth performance over all the other inclusion rates, although all the diets containing the water hyacinth leaf powder showed effectiveness as an economic fish feed . 

 Water hyacinth does not have the capacity to replace the traditional fish meal,therefore, it is used as a supplementary fish feed ingredient along with the traditional ingredients; but the incorporation level of traditional ingredients like fish meal, groundnut cake, rice bran etc. was kept at lowest inclusion level. 

 

Water hyacinth can  play an important role in fish feed formulation to overcome high feed prices.

FISH HEALTH.

Fish health refers to the wholeness of the fish, in terms of physiological conditions and environmental factors.The health of the fish depends largely on the conditions of the water,the feed and management. Fish should be placed in optimum conditions to prevent stress which leads to death and economic losses. Stress for the fish refers to conditions that prevents the attainment of normal physiological state,the causes of stress are chemical, biological,physical and procedural. Chemical stress factors include; poor water quality,low dissolved oxygen,pollutants (such as pesticides,oil spills,soap e.t.c),nitrogenous wastes and accumulation of ammonia. These stressors can be prevented by better management practices hence saving the fish. The incorporation of Atovi animal premix in fish farming has a 2-prong effect; it acts on the fish energizing the mitochondria ,which affects all the organs of the fish making them more efficient.The powder revitalizes and rejuvenates the cells and enhances the immune system ,this results in better absorption of feed because the atovi powder maintains and corrects the digestive system. The Atovi powder also works on the water itself ; it prevents the build up of hydrogen sulfide in the pond which is a major cause of fish death . The powder energizes the water,resulting in rapid breakdown of ammonia waste and other pollutants in the water,thus making more oxygen available for the fish.It aids oxygenation of the pond, maintains a steady PH and the amount of dissolved gases in the pond. Atovi powder benefits in fish farming include; early harvest , reduced feed cost, bigger fish and high livability of fish and zero cost of medication. The powder is also of immense benefit in ponds experiencing losses,when its used the deteriorating fish health are reversed,fish are rejuvenated and regenerated because of enhanced metabolism and immune system. ATOVI PREMIX............a paradigm shift in fish farming.