A PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF "SEA VEGETABLE", Caulerpa macrodisca (Decaisne) WEBER-VAN BOSSE IN CAPTIVITY  

Wahidatul Husna Zuldin*, Rossita Shapawi and Sitti Raehanah Mohd Shaleh
Borneo Marine Research Institute, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
E-mail: wahidatul@ums.edu.my

Caulerpa macrodisca (Decaisne) Weber-van Bosse is a siphonous green macroalgae that has been reported to be widely distributed around South-west Asia (Sri Lanka), South China Sea, South-east Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam) and Pacific Islands (Samoan Archipelago). This species was known as "eaba-eaba" in Iloilo, Philippines which were collected seasonally from the wild by divers, sold in the local markets and consumed as fresh salad by the local people. However, the cultivation and consumption of C. macrodisca in Malaysia is very uncommon due to the limited research on this species occurrence. Recently, this species was found to be available around the West Coast of Sabah, Malaysia. This study reported the performance of C. macrodisca collected from Malaysian waters in captivity. The C. macrodisca was successfully grown in the tank for 40 days with the salinity ranged from 30.29 to 32.18 ppt, temperature of 28.03 to 31.42 oC, DO level of 4.75 to 5.21 mgL-1, pH of 7.62 to 8.06 and light intensity of 50.77 to 87.55 µmol photons m-2s-1. The specific growth rate of C. macrodisca in the tank was 5.13 g day-1 and the weight gain was 281.85%. A proximate analysis was performed on the C. macrodisca with values of 21.52%, 23.85%, 1.09%, 13.08% and 97.01% for crude protein, crude fibre, crude lipid, ash and moisture content respectively. This study suggested that C. macrodicsa would have a good growth performance in captivity and this species could be used as a kind of natural food and fibre for human. In conclusion, this study is significant to provide baseline data for the C. macrodisca culture in Malaysia.