Proximate Composition for Egg Custard as Alternative Feed for Macrobrachium rosenbergii Larvae

Recently, the demand for aquaculture feed is increasing due to the expansion of small-scale hatcheries to large-scale or semi-intensive hatcheries. Giant freshwater prawn which also known as M. rosenbergii is an important source of income to farmers. However, the aquaculture development of this species is restricted to the unavailability and expensive feed formulation cost. An economical feed known as egg custard has been used extensively as the M. rosenbergii larvae feed to replace or partially replace the expensive live food such as Artemia nauplii. The present study comparing two different pretreatment methods prior for proximate analysis using freeze drying and oven drying on egg custard samples. Better pretreatment method obtained in the first experiment was then applied to another egg custard diet, which was egg custard + shrimp and squid (ss). Each sample was undergone proximate analysis including moisture, crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, ash and nitrogen free extracts. Oven-dried egg custard samples showed higher nutritional value compared freeze drying method. The proximate analysis on formulated egg custard diet showed that egg custard diet fit the nutritional requirements of freshwater prawn larvae better compared to egg custard + SS formulation.