The price of fish pellets on the market is getting more expensive. In fact, feeding cost takes around 70% from the production cost. This is what encourages students of the Science Education Study Program, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, UNY, namely Dinda Restu Nabila, Siska Yulianti and Faridatul Liana to innovate catfish alternative pellet.
According to Dinda Restu Nabila, water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and rice field snails (Pila ampullacea) have high protein substance which can be used as natural fish pellet. "The water hyacinth plant contains organic material which has a fairly high protein content, namely 11.2%, while the protein content of rice field snails is 15%," she explained.
Siska Yulianti explained that the ingredients used for catfish pellet are rice field snails, water hyacinth, bran, corn flour, starch, selenium, boiling stone, 0.1 N H2SO4 and 40% NaOH. "Corn in the pellet formulation is allowed in the range of 10-30% of the total raw material," Siska said.
Their research showed that giving water hyacinth pellets and rice field snails to catfish gave good results. At first the seeds were 1 week old with a length of 0.13 meters and a weight of 0.15 kg, after 1 month of giving pellets the length of the catfish increased by 0.03 meters and the weight increased by 0.04 kg. After 2 months it becomes 0.28 meters long and weighs 0.39 kg.
Based on research, catfish growth will develop well after adapting to the environment for a week. Pellets with a ratio of water hyacinth: rice field snails 2: 1 can optimally replace the use of factory pellets compared with a ratio of 1: 1 and 1: 2.The advantage of their catfish pellet is set on the fact that the pellet do not contain factory chemicals that can reduce the levels of protein contained in catfish. In addition, the materials used are widely available in the surrounding environment so that it is easy to find them. "Composition of the suggested alternative pellet ratio based on this research is the ratio of water hyacinth: rice field snails of 2: 1 with the composition of 150 grams of water hyacinth and 75 grams of snail meat," concluded Faridatul Liana. (Dedy, Tj.Lak)