New feed launched to replace artemia as a shrimp larval feed

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

New feed launched to replace artemia as a shrimp larval feed

The Norwegian aquafeed company, Blue Limit AS, a spin-off from Fiskeriforskning, Bergen/  Nofima, and financed by Sarsia Seed AS from Bergen, Norway and Innovation Norway, presented a unique new patent-applied shrimp larval feed, Brilliant Blue, to an international aquafeed, ingredient and aquaculture farming audience at Victam Asia 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand this week. Turn-out was considerable and there was significant interest from all areas of the industry.

Managing Director, Dr. Anders Aksnes, said “Blue Limit AS intends to replace artemia in shrimp hatcheries and wherever else our feed can be useful and demonstrate the required nutritional value.” The same, he said, applied to their next generation shrimp larvae feed, Brilliant Glory.

"Brilliant Blue clearly has a place in the early stage shrimp larvae feed arena as a specially formulated early stage shrimp larvae supplement feed”.

“The new video of shrimp larvae (Post Larvae 2) feeding on Brilliant Blue (Grade B) demonstrates we have a feed that does not adsorb and does not foul the water. Together with the studies on survival, growth, leakage and dispersion these results show that Brilliant Blue has unique properties. The reception at Victam Asia 2008 supports this view”.

Blue Limit Technology

Blue Limits patent-applied/pending technology combines in-depth understanding of marine organisms’ attraction, ingestion and digestion of feed together with extensive knowledge of and about available marine ingredient sources combined with innovative processing to provide a unique larvae and fry feed, with optimal physiochemical and nutritional properties.

Dr. Anders Aksnes has very broad experience over 30 years from research and development in to a range of aquafeed projects for fish, shell and crustaceans. Together with the process group at Fiskeriforskning he has documented the patent applied technology.

Bottom-Up - Not Top-Down

Whereas a range of larvae/fry might be the result of 'making big feed work for smaller', Blue Limit’s technology has been developed and built from the basic nutritional requirements, through available ingredients to processing to consistently supply the feed so it i) is found, ii) can be ingested, iii) is digested and iv) provides optimal nutritional value to the organism.

Flexible for Multiple Sources, Compositions and Species

Blue Limits technology can be used to produce evenly distributed (nutritional, particle size, physiochemical properties, etc.) particulate material from approximately 1-5 µm and upwards using a range of different ingredient sources to supply e.g. lipid/hydrophilic compositions with a broad range. The Brilliant Blue and Brilliant Glory product ranges for crustacean larvae are 5 µm and above.

Studies of the sinking and leakage suggest that the technology provides products that have unique characteristics compared to other feed alternatives.

Blue Limit has preliminary trials from fish and shell supporting an optimistic expectation on the fry and larvae feed development for these species. Similarily early tests suggest that other crabs and crustaceans can use the BB (and BG) products with positive results.

For more about Blue Limit AS or Brilliant Blue contact Dr. Anders Aksnes or Dr. Nils B. Vogt