Shrimp feed accounts for the highest portion of the production cost of farming, and lack of understanding of shrimps' eating behaviour makes feeding even more expensive. The present practice of feeding management in shrimp culture needs to be re-examined.

Plant-based ingredients are increasingly used in fish diets due to increase economic/market pressures on feed compounders to produce lower cost, sustainable alternatives. Because plant ingredients pose a high risk of mycotoxin contamination, moving to plant protein sources in the aquafeed industry demands careful risk assessment, as well as appropriate protection strategies for fish fed contaminated feeds.

With increasing use of extruded products in aquaculture, cooling of the pellets is not enough to bring the moisture content down to the desired level. Dryers are becoming more and more popular. Paul Douglas from Aeroglide emphasises that dryer design is of major importance in establishing an energy efficient drying process.

In this regular contribution to Feed Tech, Dr Joachim Hertrampf comments on issues that affect shrimp farming and feeding. Dr Hertrampf writes on this issue regularly as a consultant for the monthly newsletter 'Shrimp Matters', of The Waterbase in Chennai, India. This column focuses on the importance of proper feed storage.

In this regular contribution to Feed Tech, Dr Joachim Hertrampf comments on issues that affect shrimp farming and feeding. Dr Hertrampf regularly writes 'hands-on' articles as a consultant for the monthly newsletter Shrimp Matters, of The Waterbase in Chennai, India. This column focuses on factors that influence the digestibility of shrimp feed.

Nutrition is one of the key drivers in animal production, especially intensive animal production. In aquaculture, the high cost of diets makes it even more so. Using feed that is targeted to give maximum efficiency from the species grown can mean the difference between a profitable and a marginal operation.

In tropical conditions it is very difficult to keep feed pest-free. One solution is to fumigate feed with aluminium phosphide. Until now I was not clear whether fumigation residues in shrimp feed were detrimental to the shrimp or not.

Pellet density has been a major concern in the production of aquatic feeds. Density Control is a tool to regulate the steam pressure in the venting zone of an extruder, which is an important parameter to adjust the degree of expansion of extruded pellets.

Spread out between the Red Sea and the desert is an exemplary shrimp breeding facility – and right in the middle of it a Buhler feed manufacturing plant. Using a new production process, it produces a specialty feed for shrimp enabling the animals to be raised in pure saltwater.

Today's expectations are that the fish feed supplier can produce a product that hits precise quality targets in terms of size, durability, density and nutritional composition at a highly competitive price. The following article describes a few of the ways that Extru-Tech has tackled these issues to keep its customers at the cutting edge of their market.