Fungi and mussels acceptable in fish feed

SLU researchers have previously shown that much of the fish oil in the feed can be replaced by vegetable oils, such as rapeseed oil. When fish were fed with alternative sources of protein, for example, mussel meal and zygomycetes (a kind of filamentous fungi), they grew as well as did fish raised on traditional feed

At present, half of both the fish oil and the protein in the feed can be replaced by alternatives such as mussels, zygomycetes and rapeseed oil without jeopardising the growth or health of the fish.

One future scenario is an ecocycle in which mussel farming and fish farming are combined. The mussels ingest the algae that take in nutrients leaking from the fish farm and can then be ground down into meal for use as fish feed.