GROW OUT OF PATIN (Pangasionodon hypopthalmus ) FED ON DIFFERENT PROTEIN LEVELS OF DIET  

The catfish-patin (Pangasionodon hypopthalmus) is highly demanded as table fish in some areas of Indonesia. Local diet formulating using available ingredient from surrounding fish farmer pond is fed on patin culture because of expensive price of commercial diet, such in Riau, Jambi, South Sumatera, Middle Kalimantan and South Kalimantan as well. This diet is low price, but its quality, particularly protein content and palatability is lower than commercial diet, producing longer feeding period to attain marketable size. An experiment, therefore, proposed to evaluate growth performance of patin fed on various protein level of diet formulating local ingredients resulting cultured in concrete tanks in Research and Development Station for Environment and Toxicology, Cibalagung Bogor. Treatments were local diet containing 25 and 30% protein compared to commercial diet having 30% protein level. Patin fingerlings of 42 - 50 g in individual weight were randomly distributed to nine concrete tanks of 10m² in area at 40 per tank, respectively and daily fed on test diet at 6% of total body weight for 60 days of experimental period. Parameters tested were growth, feed efficiency, and survival rate.

The results showed that there were no mortality found at each experimental tank, indicating that no water quality problems was observed during feeding period. Diet consumption was lower at 25% protein than that at others, but comparable at 30% and commercial (P<0.05). This was observed for parameters of absolute weight gain and specific growth rate (P<0.05). The highest growth of patin at 25% protein was good for patin cuture. Respon of growth to various test diets followed an equation of y=0.146x²-8.126x+0.146. It means that diet for patin culture formulated using local ingredient maximally contained 27.83 % protein to promote growth at minimum rate. Feed efficiency is a key parameter to evaluate diet vaule in term of growth and also price. Diet at 25% protein produced the best feed efficiency of patin compared to at other diets (P<0.05).