International Journal of Aquaculture, 2025, Vol.15, No.3, 149-154 http://www.aquapublisher.com/index.php/ija 149 Research Report Open Access Productivity of Cultivating Silk Worms (Tubifex sp.) in a Tray System Using Different Doses in The Maintenance Media at Bpbat Mandiangin Hemalia Putri 1, Rustiana Widaryati 2 , Darmono 2 1 Students of Fish Cultivation Study Program, Seruyan Polytechnic, A Yani Kuala Pembuang II, Seruyan Hilir, Seruyan, 74215, Central Kalimantan 2 Lecturer of Fish Cultivation Study Program, Seruyan Polytechnic, A Yani Kuala Pembuang II, Seruyan Hilir, Seruyan, 74215, Central Kalimantan Corresponding author: rustianawidaryati88@gmail.com International Journal of Aquaculture, 2025, Vol.15, No.3 doi: 10.5376/ija.2025.15.0014 Received: 19 May., 2025 Accepted: 17 Jun., 2025 Published: 30 Jun., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Putri et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Putri H., Widaryati R., and Darmono, 2025, Productivity of cultivating silk worms (Tubifex sp.) in a tray system using different doses in the maintenance media at Bpbat Mandiangin, International Journal of Aquaculture, 15(3): 149-154 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2025.15.0014) Abstract The success of this aquaculture effort is determined through a handful of activity segments which are the key to the success of an effort to cultivate fish. One natural food that has high nutritional content is silk worms. Silk worms (Tubifex sp.) are a natural food that is widely used as fish food. The aim is to determine productivity, biomass and increase in worm population. The methods used in this activity are primary data collection, secondary data collection and documentation. The treatments given were treatments A and B, namely in the treatment of probiotics and 10% molasses with a media height of 5 cm and in treatment B probiotics and 20% molasses with a media height of 4 cm. The stages of implementing the activities included preparing containers, preparing culture media, spreading silk worms (Tubifex sp.), maintenance and harvesting of silk worms. The test parameters observed included absolute biomass, population increase and productivity. The results of the research showed that silk worm productivity, absolute biomass and silk worm population increase with the tray system with different doses in the highest media was in treatment A with a productivity value of 3.8 kg/m2, total biomass 164 grams and population increase of 138 720 ind/m2. Keywords Silk worms; Natural feed; Productivity 1 Introduction The success of this aquaculture effort is determined through a handful of activity segments which are the key to the success of an effort to cultivate fish. This includes providing natural feed so that the fish seeds that are raised produce healthy food fish. Silk worms (Tubifex sp.) are a natural food that has a high nutritional content and contains relatively high levels of nutrients for the development of fish larvae. According to Hadiroseyani et al. (2007), the supply of tubifex in the environment will not be available in every season, because the silkworms in nature are carried away by the strong current due to the influence of high rainfall intensity. Thus, silkworm cultivation efforts are needed with the aim of being able to meet the needs of natural feed for freshwater fish seeds. silk worms are a type of natural food that fish like because they have good nutrition for the development of fish larvae. The nutritional content of silk worms is 51.9% protein, 20.3% carbohydrates, 22.3% fat and 5.3% ash (Darillia et al., 2022) Natural feeding of silkworms for fish larvae has so far used silkworms from nature such as rivers, ditches and canals, therefore to help the existence of silkworms must be done by cultivating them. The lack of availability of silkworms such as those obtained from ditches and water channels will often bring parasites and diseases that can cause mass death in fish larvae if eaten by the larvae. Meanwhile, if silkworms are kept alone in a controlled maintenance place, then silkworms are free from disease and parasites because the substrate and food obtained can be managed by the larvae (Khotimah et al., 2023). One of the problems in aquaculture activities is the high mortality rate of fish larvae caused by the capacity of natural feed that is still less than optimal. To overcome this, a type of natural feed is needed that can meet the needs of fish. In accordance with the existing problems, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the productivity, absolute biomass and population growth of silkworms (Tubifex sp.) maintained with different media
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==