Efficacy of Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) Larvae Meal as Feed on Growth Performance for Juvenile Javan Mahseer (Tor tambra)

Abstract

Fish meal (FM) is a well known protein source for fish feed and its heavy utilization has contributed to overfishing that lead to increase price of formulated feed due to scarcity of fish resources for fish meal. Several studies were done to identify the best substitution of FM including Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae as a potential candidate for FM replacement. This study was done to investigate the proximate composition of Black Soldier Fly Larvae Meal (BSFLM) and to determine its efficacy as feed on growth performance of Javan Mahseer (Tor tambra). Three types of treatment were used namely F0 or control (0% BSFLM and 100% FM), F50 (50% BSFLM and 50% FM) and F100 (100% BSFLM and 0% FM). Each treatment was fed twice daily for 20 days to 10 Javan Mahseer with the average initial weight of 0.1g respectively. Analyses conducted was proximate composition and growth performance like specific growth rate, feed conversion ratio, survival rate and body weight gain. Data was analysed using One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) SPSS Windows 27. Results show that crude protein in F0, F50 and F100 were 37.52%, 30.36% and 27.52%; while F50 indicated best BWG (66.71%) and lowest FCR (3.16) respectively. It can be concluded that treatment 50% inclusion of BSF is the best ratio for good growth performances of Javan Mahseer.