The limited and increasing cost of fishmeal and imported raw materials has spurred interest in sustainable alternatives for shrimp feed (FAO, 2022). L ocally-available biomass as ingredients for shrimp feeds offers a cost-effective and sustainable option, but are often of poor quality and with low digestibility.
This study consisted of two (2) feeding trials in a RAS system. The first trial, s hown in Table 1 , was to compare a Positive Control , a Negative Control , and a Negative Control supplemented with digestibility enhancement mixture (Upgrade1) . The second study focused on fine-tuning the Upgrade mixture.
The in-vitro test confirmed the increased feeds digestibility (Table 2) . In-vivo growth trials also confirmed the improvement in final body weight and FCR (Figure 1a,b). Also, fine-tuned mixture resulted in better FCR (Figure 2) than the Positive Control , .
This study showed that the inclusion of local plant-based materials resulted in subpar performance in P. vannamei as compared to fishmeal-based diet but such can be mitigated if the feeds digestibility is increased.