PACKING TECHNOLOGY OF SEA WEED  Kappaphycus alvarezii SEED WTHOUT WATER

Sea weed Kappaphycus alvarezii becoming important species for mariculture. The advantage of this species as mariculture commodity are open market availability, simple culture technology, short time culture duration, and absorbed many man power. One of main problem culturing sea weed which was usually located in remote area is seed transportation. There are two system in sea weed packing, namely clossed system and open system, however because of distance location, oftenly seed already died or have weak condition after reach culture area. Therefore effort must be done to to keep seaweed still alive during packing and transportation. The objective of this trial was to find the best packing technique for seaweed.

The first study was open system with four treatments used for this trial, as follows: (1) sea weed seed put into the basket; (2) sea weed seed put into the basket and was rinsed with sea water every 5 hours; (3) sea weed seed put into the plastic bag with several holes and (4) sea weed seed put into the sack with several holes. All of the treatment put in sheltered sun light. The second study was clossed syatem, with three treatments as follows: (1) sea weed seed put into styrofoam container and clossely tied with lackband and  monitored every 5 hours; (2) sea weed seed  put into styrofoam container with three ice cubes and repacking after 50 hours; and (3) sea weed seed put into styrofoam container with three ice boxes and observed every 5 hours after the 24^th hour.

Results of the trials showed  that  for open system, treatment 1 seaweed seed still alive until 15 hours; treatment 2, 3 and 4 seaweed seed still alive until 25 hours. Meanwhile for  the clossed system, sea weed seed for treatment 1 was still alive at 20 hours; treatment 2 until 75 hours and treatment 3 until 50 hours.