One of the main challenges for European aquaculture farmers is improving feed efficiency. This is key to reducing production costs and achieving sustainability for the aquaculture industry as feed accounts for 30-70% of total production costs.

The European project PerformFISH, which aims to ensure sustainable growth of the Mediterranean marine fish farming industry, is addressing this challenge from several perspectives, one of them being the optimization of the feeding rates in seabass and seabream aquaculture. 

One of the project partners, Sparos, developed FEEDEST, a decision-support tool that allows farmers to estimate the feeding rates to reach the maximum fish growth potential while ensuring minimal feed waste.

FEEDEST is a computational tool that allows the user to choose between three predefined commercial feeds and upload a farm-specific temperature profile. Based on that, FEEDEST provides an estimate of the maximum growth potential and provides a feeding table adapted to achieve it with minimal feed waste. The FEEDEST tool provides a reference of the maximum absolute feeding rates for the species and feed, considering no feed waste and undisturbed appetite. Although the tool is fully developed, a questionnaire can be completed by the users that are invited to submit their feedback so that the tool can be further improved to fit their needs. 

PerformFISH works to ensure sustainable growth of the Mediterranean aquaculture industry through supporting fish farms to not only operate in good economic and environmental conditions but also in a socially and culturally responsible manner.