Derris elliptica as stunning material in live fish transportation

Abstract

In past few decades, demand for fresh, live fish has increase, especially in Asia. This has encouraged the trade of live fish but there are problems occur especially in transporting aspect. Fish are stressed due to unstable condition of transporting or packing and some died while transporting. To avoid this, fish can probably be stunned to make their metabolism fall and low movement of fish thus, low level of stress and fish will survived. But some stunning methods are not efficient and some materials are harmful. This will affect the quality of fish meat. This project's aim is to determine whether Derris elliptica, of locally known as "Akar Tuba", can be used as an organic stunning material to stun freshwater fishes. Java Barb was used in this experiment. This experiment were conducted to see the effectiveness of "Akar Tuba" as stunning material and to find adequate concentration to stun fish. The sample fishes were placed in plastic bags, containing 2L of water. Excess air is removed and replaced with pure oxygen. Extraction of Derris elliptica were mixed with the water in the packaging bags according to the determined concentration level, 25mg/L, 50mg/L, 100mg/L and 200mg/L. The sample fishes the observed for their behavior and the time of the effects to begin and stunning period are taken. The outcome of this experiment proved that Derris elliptica has possibility to be used as an organic stunning material in live fish transportation. Treating fishes with concentration 50mg/L and 100mg/L are the suitable range of concentration to stun fish and not killing or harm them.