Nothing fishy about new prawn feed additive

Farmed prawns don’t have a great reputation - but a new prawn feed additive developed by CSIRO could change that. Farmed prawns fed with CSIRO-developed Novacq prawn feed additive reportedly grow 30% faster, are healthier and can be produced with no fish products in their diet.

CSIRO’s Dr Nigel Preston says this is a game-changer for the industry. “We fed Novacq to black tiger prawns, and it made them even better for consumers, the environment and prawn farmers,” Dr Preston said.

Novacq is based on marine microbes, which CSIRO has discovered how to feed, harvest and convert into a bioactive ingredient that can be added into prawn feed.

Historically, prawn feed has been a pellet that includes some sustainably sourced fish meal or fish oil; using Novacq means fish meal and oil can be eliminated from the prawn diet, freeing the prawn aquaculture industry from reliance on wild fishery resources.

“This is a major achievement for the sustainability of Australia’s aquaculture industry as prawns fed this diet are not only a top-quality product and reach market size faster, they also no longer need to be fed with any products from wild fishery resources,” Dr Preston said.

Ridley AgriProducts, in collaboration with the CSIRO, has taken out a licence to produce and distribute Novacq in Australia and several south-east Asian countries.

“We’ve seen this product in action and we know how great it is,” said General Manager Aquafeed Bob Harvey, from Ridley AgriProducts. “We’ve conducted multiple laboratory-based trials, and in conjunction with CSIRO and a great customer of ours, Australian Prawn Farms, we have proven the effects of Novacq when commercially grown, added into a commercial prawn feed and fed to black tiger prawns in multiple full-scale commercial-sized ponds.

“Adding Novacq into even the best-performing prawn diets on the market, we proved a significant incremental growth rate and food conversion rate improvement.”

Over the next 12 months, Ridley will upscale production, perform additional tests and farm-scale trials, and then move into full-scale commercial production.

CSIRO will present the results of five years of Novacq testing at the 2013 Ridley AquaFeed Australian Prawn and Barramundi Farmers Conference in Queensland.