Potential Use of Live Mealworm as A Sustainable Feed to Improve Productivity of the Giant Freshwater Prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii

Abstract

A 63 days feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of live mealworm feeding on the productivity of giant freshwater prawn (GFP), Macrobrachium rosenbergii. Three dietary treatments were used in this study: Treatment 1 (T1), commercial prawn feed (control); Treatment 2 (T2), combination of commercial prawn feed and live mealworm; Treatment 3 (T3), live mealworm, were fed to randomly assigned duplicate groups of the GFP. Results showed that GFP in T3 recorded the highest body weight gain (295%), followed by those with T2 and the lowest in T1, despite not significantly different (p>0.05). GFP fed with T1 (88%) showed lower survival rate than those fed with T2 and T3 which may be ascribed to the inferior water quality. Besides, T3 resulted in better feed conversion ratio (1.66) despite no significant difference was observed. Noteworthy, the feeding cost of T1 (RM0.018 g of prawn-1) was significantly lower as compared to T2 and T3, but live mealworm feeding could be more cost-effective for longer culture period. Therefore, live mealworm could be a potential alternative to commercial prawn feed for GFP farming.

Keywords

• giant freshwater prawn
• macrobrachium rosenbergii
• live mealworm
• sustainable feed
• tenebrio molitor