The aquaculture industry currently consumes 70 percent of the global production of fish oil and 35 percent of total fishmeal. The salmon and trout fish farming sectors alone consume over one half of the worlds fish oil. And if fish farming continues to grow at the current rate, then by 2010 the aquaculture industry could well be using all of the worlds fish oil and half of its fishmeal. Therefore, economically viable alternatives to the use of marine ingredients need to be found and implemented quickly. Successful industrial cultivation of algae to produce a clean and pollution free edible oil containing DHA has been recently achieved, and DHA-rich materials are now available for aquaculture feeds through Advanced BioNutrition Corporation (ABN). We propose that efficient utilization of algal based meals in fish diet could result in a very cost-effective alternative to fish meal and fish oil. This Phase I study addresses two fundamental questions: 1. Can both fish meal and fish oil be eliminated from the diet of a salmonid and replaced by algal meal? 2. Can the salmonid still maintain nutritionally significant levels of DHA, in the end product?
Potential Commercial Applications: We expect to develop algal based feed formulation for the entire grow-out scale of Atlantic salmon. We anticipate that ABN replacement strategies based on algal DHA and ARA oils will enable a much higher degree of fish meal/oil replacement as compared to current attainable levels
