A quaculture production must double in the next 30 years to meet the increased seafood demand. To meet this challenge , our industry needs to address long-standing bottlenecks in production and implement innovative approaches to increase the environmental, economic, and ethical sustainability of aquaculture . Morbidity and mortality observed during early life stages, when aquatic animals are particularly susceptible to stress, is a key limiting factor for most aquaculture operations .
KnipBio has partnered with Riverence in an on-farm trial to evaluate the effectiveness of KnipBio’s single cell protein (KBM ) to reduce mortalities incurred during out-planting of fingerlings from indoor hatcheries to outdoor raceways. KBM provides important molecules like antioxidant carotenoids and prebiotics with immune-enhancing properties. The indoor hatchery phase of the trial was designed as an incomplete 2x3 factorial (KBM inclusion and feeding duration) and included a commercial feed benchmark treatment. After out-planting, all fish were fed the commercial feed and were monitored for 4 weeks . In the hatchery phase, w e observed that fish fed diets containing 5 or 10% KBM were 4 to 5.5 times as likely to survive than those fed an unsupplemented control diet . After out-planting, fish that had received a feed containing 5% KBM for 6 weeks were 2.2 times as likely to survive than fish that had received the commercial benchmark feed.
At the farm level, t hese significant improvements in survival rates suggest that dietary inclusion of KBM can yield improvements in fish welfare and production efficiency, as well as a reduction in the number of eggs necessary to reach production targets .