The effect of blood meal to induce aquaculture performance of striped catfish (Pangasionodon hypophthalmus Sauvage, 1878)

Abstract The high price of fish meal as feed is the main problem in cultivating striped catfish. The use of blood meal, waste from slaughterhouses, can be an alternative to improve aquaculture performance while reducing feed costs. This research aimed to determine the effect of using blood meal as a source of feed protein on the growth performance of striped catfish. The research design used was a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) consisting of five treatments and three replications. The treatments used were A (blood meal 0%, fish meal 100%) as control, B (blood meal 25%, fish meal 75%), C (blood meal 50%, fish meal 50%), D (blood meal 75%, fish meal 25%), and E (blood meal 100%, fish meal 0%). The results showed that the average body weight and specific growth in treatments B (8.25 ± 0.63 b g, 3.51 ± 0.13 b %/day) and C (8.26 ± 0.73 b g, 3.52 ± 0.14 b %/day) had the same performance as the control. It is concluded that blood meal can be substituted and combined with fish flour with a maximum composition of 50% to improve the performance of striped catfish aquaculture. Further research to increase the nutrition of blood meal must be conducted to improve the aquaculture performance of striped catfish.