Location: Aquatic Animal Health Research
2023 Annual Report
Accomplishments
1. Dietary inclusion of black soldier fly larvae frass enhanced production of channel catfish juveniles, stevia, and lavender in an aquaponic system. Aquaponics integrates aquaculture with hydroponics where waste produced by the fish can be utilized by the plants as nutrients. However, adding supplemental nutrients to enhance plant production is common. Frass, which is the manure of insects and the substrate used to culture them, can be used to enhance fish and plant production. Depending upon the culture substrate used to grow the insects, it may be possible to enhance both plant and fish growth with a dietary approach in an aquaponic system. ARS researchers in Auburn, Alabama, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and ARS researchers in Stuttgart, Arkansas, evaluated channel catfish juveniles which were fed diets with or without 10% black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) frass in an aquaponic system. Each system had two different plant bed types, floating raft and media and were used to grow stevia and lavender. Catfish grew significantly better when fed a diet containing 10% BSFL frass compared to fish fed a diet without frass. Further, intestinal histology showed reduced inflammation. The proximate composition of catfish was unaffected by diet, while both stevia and lavender had significantly more biomass when frass was added to the system, while plants grown in media beds were larger than plants grown in a floating raft subsystem. Frass significantly increased phosphorus in both stevia and lavender at week 8. Higher water calcium, magnesium, and nitrate levels may have allowed for higher growth rates as these nutrients are essential for proper plant health. The increase of fish growth was likely due to the upregulation of genes responsible for growth, mitigating intestinal inflammation, and enhancing diet intake. Thus, it appears that feeding catfish with BSFL frass and culturing stevia and lavender in media beds can improve overall productivity.
Review Publications
Romano, N., Webster, C.D., Sinha, A., Beck, B.H., Yamamoto, F. 2023. Dietary inclusions of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae frass enhanced production of channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) juveniles, stevia (Stevia rebaudiana, and lavender (Lavaridula angustifolia) in an aquaponic system. Aquaculture. 575:739742.
Padeniya, U., Davis, D., Liles, M.R., Lafrentz, S.A., Lafrentz, B.R., Shoemaker, C.A., Beck, B.H., Wells, D.E., Bruce, T.J. 2023. Probiotics impact resistance to Streptococcus iniae in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) reared in biofloc systems. Journal of Fish Diseases. 46:1137-1149. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfd.13833.
Liu, A., Phillips, K., Jia, J., Deng, P., Zhang, D., Chang, S., Lu, S. 2023. Development of a QPCR detection approach for pathogenic burkholderia cenocenpacia from fresh vegetables. Food Microbiology. 115:104333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fm.2023.104333.
Kelly, A.M., Renukdas, N., Barnett, L.M., Beck, B.H., Abdelrahman, H.A., Roy, L.A. 2023. The use of kaolin as a prophylactic treatment to prevent columnaris disease (Flavobacterium covae) in commercial baitfish and sportfish species. Veterinary Sciences. 10(7):441. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci10070441.
