Effects of Three Different Dietary Binders on Juvenile Sea Cucumber, Apostichopus japonicus

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of three different dietary binders on growth performance and water analysis in the culture of juvenile sea cucumber, Apostichopus japonicus. The basal diet without binder was used as control (CON), three diets with each of three different binder sources such as guar gum (G₁₀), carrageenan (C₁₀) and xanthan gum (X₁₀) at 10%, and other three diets (G₅C₅, C₅X₅ and X₅G₅) were formulated to contain mixture of two different binders at 5% for each. Juvenile sea cucumber averaging 1.09 ± 0.01 g (mean ± SD) were fed one of the seven experimental diets for 12 weeks. Weight gain and specific growth rate of sea cucumber fed G₁₀ and X₅C₅ diets were significantly higher than those of sea cucumber fed the CON diet. Diet cumulative melt away rates for G₁₀, X₁₀, X₅C₅, G₅C₅ and G₅X₅ diets were significantly higher than CON diet. G10 diet resulted in a significantly lower chemical oxygen demand comparing to CON diet. Therefore, the present study demonstrated that 10% of dietary guar gum and mixture of 5% xanthan gum and 5% carrageenan could improve growth and water quality in juvenile sea cucumber aquaculture.