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TATEH reinvents early fish nutrition with

MICRO PELLETS

Three Winners Selected for Enterprise Hatchery 2012

TATEH Aquafeeds LaunchesNew Product Lines

Taal Lake Clean-Up Drive

Red TIlapia Culture in Taal Lake

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It is common for fish farm-ers to declare losses. In almost every harvest, most fish farmers maintain that the previous run was better, as if echoing the U.S. Navy Seal’s dictum —there is no easier day than yesterday. Loss-es are common in the aquacul-ture business: poor harvest, fish kills, poor growth performance, parasites and other undesirable occurrences. Name it, industry have heard it. Most raisers claim a very big difference in harvests then and now. The previous runs were said to be done using tra-ditional culture management practice but were still much more profitable.

What is the real score? According to the Bureau of Agri-cultural Statistics (BAS), exclud-ing seaweeds, aquaculture pro-duction increased from 443,537 mt in 2002 to 767,287 mt last 2011 for an average increase of 32,375 mt per year. This increase augments the very recent decline in municipal and commercial fish-eries. If seaweed production is included the aquaculture industry contributes 47.32% by quantity to the national total annual pro-duction in fisheries. Fisheries as a whole contributed 24.4% of the Gross Value Added in agricultural sector.

With the continued in-crease in the aquaculture sub-sector does it mean it is not af-fected by climate change? The actual situation is not that simple. What is certain is the increase in the number of people going into fish farming. This probably

makes up for recent losses in fish farming which is taking its toll. Sudden change in weather patterns is puzzling established fish farm operators who are find-ing it difficult to follow their usual practices and in keeping up with their historical harvest data. Un-expected rains, rise in tempera-ture and other phenomena are giving everyone a hard time. These changes result in fish kills, poor growth performances and low harvest. So how can we in the aquaculture industry cope up with this situation?

First, we need to be pro-active, get to the problems before they even surface. A farm opera-tor can no longer afford to just rely on his/her caretaker in the comfort of his home without visit-ing the farm. Second, we must be more scientific in approach instead of relying on traditional practices. Treat each cropping as new risk which must not be taken for granted since resources are

involved. Thirdly, let us be savvy and be open to new technologies both from the private and public sectors. Take more time to read on new development in aquacul-ture. Fourth, connect, commu-nicate and be involved. Reach out to the right people— attend conventions or seminars that are organized now and then. Finally, invest on trials. Allot some re-sources to try out new techniques which look promising while being aware of quality over quantity.

SANTEH Feeds Corpora-tion is committed to assist fish farmers in addressing their needs during this period of drastic cli-matic changes. Tateh Aquafeeds provide quality products that not only to help in improving har-vests but also in improving the environment of the fish which will help the fish stock weather the hazards of the uncertain weather patterns. Remember, be proac-tive, be hands-on, be informed and be involved with Santeh.

Coping with Climate Change in Aquaculture

Editorial

NEWSFEEDSanteh Feeds Corporation

Rm. 601 West Trade Center, 132 West Avenue, Quezon CityPhone: (02) 375-1560 to 62 Telefax: (02) 375-8031

Email: inquiry@tateh.com

Phillip L. OngHC Yean

Ma. Patricia I. RicoBaby Chua

Editorial Advisers

Daniel CabreraDiomede Bucog, Jr.

Ariel ReputolaLovela Tinambunan

Kristine SantillanContributors

Wilfredo YapEditorial Consultant

Dennis RitoLayout & Design

EDITORIAL TEAM

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News

Three Winners Selected for

ENTERPRISE HATCHERY 2012

TATEH Aquafeeds Launches

New ProductLines

Enterprise Hatchery, a project of Santeh Aqua-culture Science and Technology Foundartion,

Inc. has picked three business plans for this year’s competition that will each receive their requested start-up capital in the form of an investment. The three were selected by a panel of judges consist-ing of professors from the Asian Institute of Man-agement (AIM). The three winners are as follows:

“Zupao” – Fish siopao production and marketing business. The novel siopao is offered as a healthier al-ternative to the conventional meat based siopao and will be marketed through mall-based food carts. En-trepreneurs: Joann Nicolas and Far-ramae Francisco from the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV)

“Biofloc Based Culture Technol-ogy: Shrimp in the City –Food by the Bedside” a low maintenance re-circulating shrimp and tilapia pro-duction system which can be set up anywhere in an area of no more than 100 square meters. Entrepre-neurs: Rey Alaban, TJ San Diego, Vianney Ojerio and Karen Grace Andrino from the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV).

“Food Trip” – Mobile canteen and catering business, selling healthy fish products, including bangus-based value meals. Bangus will be sourced from a processing enter-prise operated successfully by Mus-lim women and an electric van will be used as the food mobile. Entre-preneur: Jonah Nobleza from Davao City who graduated from UP Dili-man.

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Participants of the Enterprise Hacthery Boot Camp held in Central Luzon State University last August 30, 2012 with the officers and staff from Santeh Foundation and JCI Manila.

With two new products, the Pre-Starter Zero and Extrufloat;

Santeh Feeds Corporation, maker of Tateh Aquafeeds has intensified its support to better fish farming for its patrons. Pre-Starter Zero and Ex-trufloat shall give emphasis to San-teh’s state-of-the-art extruded feeds technology to benefit the customers. The benefit will come from greater ease in feeding management and

will enhanced fish growth, all at very reasonable prices.

Pre-Starter Zero is a floating mi-crodiet that is applicable for young milkfish, tilapia and catfish. Initially, Santeh had launched the Zero in Taal Lake and later, and was later in-troduced nationwide. The new Pre-Starter was developed to efficiently

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Feature

It is a basic fish feeding principle that the size of the feed should fit the mouth of the fish being fed. Tateh Aquafeeds has converted this principle into reality by creating the first mouth-size-specific feed for fry stage that is in the form of micropellets. It has zero powder. Every tiny particle is a pellet containing all the essential nutrients formulated to make fish population uniform in size as they

What is Micropellets?develop from fry to fingerling if used as directed. It is available in two variants: floating and slow-sinking for either pond or cage use. Size uniformity of finger-lings is important because knowledge-able growers would prefer to stock fish that are even in size to start with. Fin-gerling price increases with size. If the population is not uniform in size the small size will command lower prices.

Recently, Tateh again launched a much smaller size variant of micropellet which is called Prestarter Zero. This PSS Zero has particle size of only 1 mm and contains 39 % crude protein. The most amazing part of the PSS is despite its small size— it floats! This PSS Zero is ideal for 30 day-old milkfish and tilapia fry in ponds or nursery cages. Given properly, wastage will be minimal if any.

TATEH reinvents early fish nutrition with

MICRO PELLETS

It used to be that farmers have no other choice but to use crumbles immediately after powder feeds.

Now Tateh offers a more suitable and healthier alternative - the MI-CROPELLET.

After the newly hatched fry have consumed the internal food avail-able in the yolk sac it turns to natural foods available in the environment in the form of plankton. After a week on plankton they need higher pro-tein levels and that is when the di-ets in powder form such as the Fry Boosters are used,

The Fry Booster feed line fills the need for higher protein with an inclu-sion of 48%, 45% and 42% crude protein level respectively for Fry Booster 1, Fry Booster 2 and Fry

Booster 3 each of which is given for one week one after another. This protein level gives fry the nutrition it needs for superior growth better than other artificial diets in the mar-ket. The special powder form of the Fry Booster feeds makes them float due to surface tension placing them exactly where the fry will be hunting for food because they are surface feeders. This fact has been borne out by observation since the intro-duction of the product years ago,

After the powder diet, farmers use crumbles to feed growing fry or fingerlings in nurseries. They use crumble feed type as weaning diet to prepare them for grow-out. How-ever, crumbles have several disad-vantages. One, a wide particle size variation from as fine as powder to

large granules. The particles which are as fine as powder are already too small while the large granules may be too big to fit the mouth size of the growing fry, so all such par-ticles are just wasted. In short, the crumbles is a very inefficient form of feed. Crumble feed type is also sub-ject to fast nutrient leaching because its uneven shape gives them a wide surface area which means a very large area in direct contact with wa-ter and is therefore subject to faster leaching and deterioration. The sud-den drop of crude protein level from powder to regular crumble also re-duces fry growth, slimmer body form and lesser appetite.

This is where the Micropellets come in. Research in Santeh has deter-mined that the mircropellet is superi-

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or to the crumbles as a weaning feed to prepare the growing fingerlings for grow out. The basic idea behind the weaning diet is to make the fish net used to a feed type which they will consume in the grow-out stage i.e. pellet. But because their mouths are still too small to ingest regular pellets these have to be made at a size that will fit their mouth, With the micropellet, farmers need not worry about feed wastage which occurs when prolonging the use of powder or introducing crumbles too early.

Tateh has two kinds of micro pellet that targets specific weight and age of fry. These are Prestarter Zero and Prestarter 1.5. The Prestarter Zero has a particle size of 1 mm and has 39% crude protein level. The PSS Zero can be used for 30 days old milkfish, tilapia and catfish. The Prestarter1.5 has a particle size of 1.5 mm and a protein level of 36%. It can be used for 45 - 60 days old tilapia. It can be used for milkfish size 3-4 (10-15 g). The PSS 1.5 has two variants: floating for ponds and slow-sinking for cages and pens. The superb growth of the fry can be sustained due to the carefully cali-brated protein level from Fry Boost-er to PSS Zero.

The new micropellet line of Tateh is highly efficient because it has no powder content and it follows spe-cific to mouth sizing principle of pel-let creation. The usual problem of wide size variation for fingerlings at harvest is avoided with the use of the micropellets. Farmers who tried micropellets in their nurser-ies for milkfish and tilapia obtained impressive growth results and find them cost effective.

With the use of the Tateh Micro-pellets immediately after the Fry Booster feeds, higher stocking den-sities can be supported in the nurs-eries without sacrificing growth and survival. For tilapia nursery ponds, swim up tilapia fry can be stocked as high as 150,000 to 200,000 fry in a 200 m2 pond for 30 - 45 days with only 10-15 bags of Fry Booster con-sumed. Harvest size ranges from size 14, size 17, and size 20. For milkfish nurseries, a one hectare pond can be loaded with 500,000 fry without compromising growth. The use of Micropellets will enable nursery operators to produce larger size fingerings for direct stocking in cages. This will require only 1 bag of PSS Zero and 2 bags of PSS 1.5 for every 5,000 pcs tilapia or ban-gus fingerlings.

New Tateh Feed Lines (from P3)

bridge the gap between Fry Boost-ers and the first Pre-Starter (now with its new name Pre-Starter 1.5) with the main intent of enhancing fry survival and growth.

Along with Pre-Starter Zero, Tateh Extrufloat was developed and de-signed for tilapia and milkfish fish-pond operation. The said product is highly digestible and can be easily assimilated by the fish. The choice of raw materials increases its palat-ability resulting to higher feed inges-tion. Extrufloat is also an extruded feed that has an efficient combina-tion of sourced raw materials espe-cially selected to conform with the feed requirement of the tilapia or milkfish. This product contains a very appropriate amount of crude protein that will result to lower FCR and less water pollutants.

These new products focused on the target consumer’s requirements for cost effective feeds. It is a dem-onstration of Santeh’s commitment to optimal feeding economy and aquaculture industry sustainability through consistently high feed qual-ity deserving to be branded as Tateh Aquafeeds.

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News

Taal Lake

CLEAN-UP DRIVE

Yearning for the clean Taal Lake like it used to be origi-nally, several stakeholders in-

cluding SANTEH Feeds Corporation united to conduct a clean-up drive last August 5, 2012 covering 12 municipalities surrounding the lake. Over 1,500 individuals composed of the national and local government officials led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resourc-es (DENR) Region 4-A Office, non-government organizations and the surrounding communities partici-pated in the massive coastal clean up to arrest the degradation of this great body of water brought about by indiscriminate waste disposal from households, industrial and ag-ricultural activities, and irresponsible fish culture practices. This clean-up activity will now be done every month in order to comply with the mandamus issued by the Supreme Court (SC) to protect the lake and by improve its current state.

The plea in a Writ of Kalikasan was filed with the Supreme Court by Agham Party-List Representative Angelo B. Palmones, who was also present during the clean-up activity. It was granted by the high court to protect the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape and the entire Taal Lake from deteriorating further. Repre-sentative Palmones said that live-lihoods especially fish farming in the lake will continue provided the provisions of the writ are complied with. Compliance will be enforced by DENR-Region 4A together with

BFAR-Region 4A, Taal Lake Task Force, Taal Lake Aquaculture Al-liance Incorporated, Taal Volcano Protected Landscape and Tang-gol Kalikasan. This will ensure the health of the lake so stakeholders can continue to enjoy the lake not only as a source of livelihood but also for recreational activities.

Tanggol Kalikasan led in the gar-bage segregation and identification along with proper disposal and data-keeping which highlighted the activi-ty. This in turn, helps stakeholders to decide what appropriate measures are necessary to manage garbage dumping.

To support the rehabilitation activi-ties in the lake, DENR Secretary Ra-mon Paje has allotted PhP 20 million for this year while all the stakehold-ers vowed to unite for the common interest. Incentives will also be giv-en to communities with the cleanest surroundings to encourage more support.

SANTEH Feeds Corporation as a stakeholder sent its staff to partici-pate in the said activity and donated thousands of empty sacks for the collected garbage and gloves as a gesture of deep concern for the lake and the aquaculture industry. The company adheres to the principles of responsible aquaculture practice and has integrated such principles to its strict adherence to good man-ufacturing practices to consistently produce feeds that are benign to the environment when properly used.

The proponents made their final pitch at the Makati Sports Club on October 2, 2012 and received their Certificate of Recognition on Octo-ber 4 from no less Agriculture Sec-retary Alcala as part of the opening program of Agrilink/Foodlink/Aqual-ink 2012 at the World Trade Center,

Enterprise Hatchery was launched by Santeh Foundation late last year to identify and help passionate young entrepreneurs build their own successful business in fisheries. For next year’s competition, Enterprise Hatchery 2013, the contest has been expanded to include agricul-ture business. Winning entries can receive an investment of up to half a million pesos as start up capital.

To equip students with the skills to develop an idea into a business plan and to create awareness in univer-sities and colleges on Enterprise Hatchery 2013, a series of boot camps is being held in various areas in cooperation with an educational institution as co host. For Northern Mindanao this was held at MSU-Naawan, Misamis Oriental on July 27, 2012. For Central and North Lu-zon at CLSU in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija Aug 30 -31. Western Visayas Boot Camp shall be held in UP Visayas Iloilo City campus on Sept 15 to 16. For the Bicol region this will be held in Bicol University Tabaco campus in Albay, and for Southern Mindan-ao, MSU-General Santos.

The contest is open to all Philippine residents aged 18 to 35 with a dead-line of submission of business plans on March 30, 2013. Contest de-tails, entry form and business plan templates can be downloaded from http://santehfoundation.org/enter-prisehatchery

Three Winners selected (from p3)...

santehfoundation

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Feature

in Taal LakeRED TILAPIA Culture

Red tilapia has long been pop-ular in many countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, USA

as well as in Taiwan. Although it has been available for a long time in the Philippines it did not find ready ac-ceptability in the wet market. The early commercial growers were able to market it to restaurants in live form and under a different name such as “Pearl Fish or “King Fish”. Lately however it has gained greater acceptance so much so that there .is now greater interest in its culture.

The red tilapia now available in the Philippines is the result of crossing the nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloti-cus) and the Mozambique tilapia (O. mossambicus) and possibly the blue tilapia (O. aureus). This hybrid is sa-linity tolerant and can survive in ma-rine or brackish water environment. Being hardy, the fish has a high en-durance to handling and transport which means low mortality and high-er harvest. This fish resembles ma-rine species like the red snapper or maya-maya, a high-value species.

In Taal Lake, red tilapia culture is still a new practice and the supply is still low. On a weekly basis, trad-ers haul five tons of live red tilapia to Manila but believe that any increase of volume in the current shipments can still be accommodated by the

expanding market. Farm gate price of the said fish in live form is 130 to 150 pesos a kilo; which is higher by 40 to 60 pesos than that of Nile ti-lapia.

In Batangas, the culture uses the protocol used for the Nile Tilapia. A 10m x 10m x 6m cage is used to hold 50,000 up to 80,000 red tilapia fingerlings sourced from hatcheries. Fingerling sizes #17 or #14 are com-monly used but bigger sizes such as mesh #10 and #12 are recom-mended for better survival. Feeds used start from Fry Boosters 3 or Tilapia Pre-Starter Zero then Tilapia Pre-Starter, Starter Crumble, Grow-er and Finisher of either TATEH Extrusink or Cage-X variants. For daily feeding rations, farmers follow the TATEH Recommended Feeding Guides.

Mr. Danilo Cadiente, a tilapia rais-er has experienced using TATEH Cage-X for his red tilapia where he achieved an FCR of 1.18. On the fi-nal week of feeding, the fish in his cage consumed 10 bags of Cage-X finisher a day. Being a seasoned grower, he estimated a harvest of 10-12 tons. But to his great and pleasant surprise, the actual harvest reached 18 tons, 6 to 8 tons above the expected volume. At a farm gate price of P130/kg, his minimum prof-

its are estimated to be around a mil-lion pesos. Such a feat can only be attained by using Tateh Aquafeeds.

For those who are into its culture it is important to reduce feeding anytime the fish is stressed to avoid wast-ing feeds and most of all mortalities. Calm or still water, high tempera-ture, overcrowding, overfeeding, shock and poor quality feeds repre-sents some of the stress factors that should not be ignored. A net cover is installed to prevent birds from preying on or injuring the highly vis-ible red tilapia.

It takes up to 6 months for the fish to reach the size of 350 g but this could be shortened by using bigger size fingerlings and using high pro-tein, high quality feeds such as only Tateh Aquafeeds can provide.

Considering the available tech-nology for red tilapia production, the availability of market and most specially its high farm gate price, a venture into red tilapia production is worth looking into. From freshwater to sea water, the fish can survive and grow well making it possible to culture in different types of environ-ment. This flexibility makes this red colored hybrid superior to the Nile tilapia and many other fish species.

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