Potential of Fermented Commercial Feed to Replace Silk Worms on Post larvae of Asian Redtail Catfish (Hemibagrus nemurus)

Asian redtail catfish (Hemibagrus nemurus) is an economically fish on Malay community. On its breeding requires silk worms as natural food that has the best for growth and survival in the post larvae phase. On the other hand, the availability of silk worms is very dependent on natural conditions. During the rainy season, the availability of silk worms becomes very rare, and this becomes a separate problem for general fish breeders. Based on this, the aimed of this research was to determine how the effect of alternative feeds, in the form of fermented commercial feeds, on the growth performance and survival rate of Asian redtail catfish post larvae. This study used a completely randomized design with 3 treatments and 3 replications, namely rare of Asian redtail catfish post larvae with silkworm feed (A), fermented commercial feed (B), non-fermented commercial feed (C), the size of post larvae used was 11.00 ± 0.00 mm, with a stocking density of 4 fish/L. The best results from this study were found in treatment A, which resulted in absolute weight growth of 0.77 ± 0.00 g, absolute length growth of 23.33 ± 0.36 mm, but the highest survival rate was obtained in treatment B (81.33 ± 4.51%), although not significantly different from treatment A. Based on the observation of feed structure, fermented commercial feed was structurally softer. The behavior of the feed response, treatment B was not different from treatment A, while the behavior of the feeding pattern showed that fermented feed (B) was better than non-fermented commercial feed (C). The results of the proximate test, the fermented feed decreased in protein, fat and crude fiber content, while the ash content increased slightly.