Industrial PhD Student – Innovation Fund Denmark

Project title: Enchytraeids as Live Feed for Aquaculture – Development of Mass Production and Cryopreservation

Partners: Fishlab and Aarhus University (AU), Ecoscience

My team and I take great interest in Enchytraeids due to their freeze tolerance ability and their use as live feed in the aquaculture industry. Enchytraeids can be produced sustainably in a terrestrial environment, eliminating  the risk of fish disease transfer commonly encountered in aquaculture live feed productions.

In the past three years, we have kickstarted mass production of enchytraeids and investigated its use as a novel live feed in aquaculture. We have shown that feeding with live enchytraeus albidus can increase growth rates of juvenile fish (i.e. Turbot, European flounder and Common whitefish) by up to 200 % and lower overall mortality. Despite the promising results, it is clear that there is a knowledge gap that, at present, limits the production and use of this live feed in the industry.

Together with ClimateStressLab and project partners, our main objective is to optimize mass production and develop cryopreservation techniques to ensure storage and transport of live Enchytraeids used as live feed in aquaculture. The ultimate goal is to implement the developed cryopreservation of enchytraeids for industrial use and provide aquaculture producers of juvenile fishes with an essential live feed product.