Fish feed pellets are a popular feed in modern commercial fish farming, providing the balanced nutrition required by fish and improving the fish farm environment. Due to the high price of feed pellets on the market, the cost is high for small fish farms. Many farmers tend to buy fish feed pellet mills to produce their own pellets to reduce costs.

If you are planning to produce your own fish feed or set up a fish feed production line, Lima Machinery has the high quality and best price that will make it the ideal choice for you.

Advantages of Fish Feed Pellet Mill

• This fish food extruder is widely used for producing floating feed pellets of all kinds of aquatic animal.
• Advanced technology and humanized design ensures easy operation and reliable performance.
• High efficiency, low power consumption
• Screw sleeve of this small fish food extruder adopts enchase alloy steel strip structure, which guarantees long service life.
• Different moulds can be chosen to make pellets with different diameters and shapes.
• Feed pellets dia. Is 0.9-15mm.

Floating Fish Feed Production Process

Material crushing –> material mixing –> extruding process –> pellets drying –> oil spraying process –> pellets cooling –> pellet packing

1. First, the ingredients used to make fish feed are ground finer by a hammer mill, making the feed easier to digest.
2. Powdered raw materials are mixed by a fish feed mixer in a certain proportion. Note that small fish need high protein levels, keep an eye on 40% protein and taper off at 30%.
3. The core step of feed production is extrusion. There are two types of fish feeders used for extrusion: dry fish feeders and wet fish feeders. For feed production in Kenya, the dry fish feed extruder is recommended because of the appropriate price and stable performance. Many of the customers we work with are satisfied with the dry feed machine. Wet fish feed machine is more suitable for large-scale production and feed pellet performance has higher requirements. By squeezing, the ingredients are cooked at a higher temperature, thus making the feed easier to digest. Note: The size of the feed pellet should be about 25% the size of the corner of the mouth.
4. Fish feed pellets produced by pelleting machine need to reduce high moisture and temperature. It is necessary to use a fish feed dryer for pellet drying.
5. In order to get a better smell and taste, people often use a spray machine to spray oil onto the surface of fish feed pellets. The injection step is optional. If you think extruded particles are okay, ignore it.
6. Hot particles are soft and easily broken, which may result in a high proportion of fine material. The particles are hardened by cooling them. Fish feed pellets are packed in bags for further transport and storage.

We are specialized manufacturers of fish feed machines, offering stand-alone and complete floating fish feed lines suitable for a wide range of freshwater species such as tilapia, catfish and trout.

Raw Material for Making Nutritional Fish Feed

• Rice Dust: contain about 10-14% of protein and also contain vitamin B1, B2, B6 and small quantity of enzyme.
• Mustard Cake: Mix maximum 40% of cake in the fish feed. But don’t use dry cake more than 20%. Mustard cake contains 30-32% protein. It also contains a high rate of fat.
• Wheat Chaff: contain fiber, control many types of fish diseases.
• Maize: contain protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamin A and E.
• Cotton Seeds: contain about 54% protein. It is a better ingredients for supplementary fish feed.
• Fish Powder: easily digestible to fish. Fishmeal contain about 55-60% protein.
• Bone Powder: very necessary for building fish-bone. The ratio of calcium and magnesium in bone dust is 2 : 1.
• Innards: very suitable and ideal feed for catfish. It contains 52% protein.

Fish Feed Production: Pellet Mill Vs. Extrusion

The granulation process takes place in the granulating machine. It involves the manufacture of pellet feed by compressing raw materials in powder form. This compression occurs in the presence of some moisture, temperature, and pressure. Pelleted feed is dense and heavy, so it sinks. One of the reasons for the sinking of the pelleted feed is that the process does not reduce the bulk density of the incoming feedstock. In other words, it cannot gelatinize starch to a degree that might affect the bulk density.

In contrast, the process allows the buoyancy of the feed to be controlled during extrusion. In addition to the formulation, the buoyancy of the extruded feed is controlled by manipulating the process temperature and moisture as well as the screw profile and screw velocity of the extruder. Extrusion is a process in which food is not only compressed as in granulation, but also “cooked,” which is why it requires higher levels of moisture, temperature, and pressure than granulation. All these requirements must be met in order to achieve the desired degree of expansion when leaving the extruder. The gelatinized starch acts as a glue, which results in improved feed integrity when stored, handled, and fed in water. Protein and fiber also contribute to grain bonding, although to a much lesser extent than starch.

The amount of starch in the formula determines the floatability of the feed. 10% starch is good for making a sinking feed, while 20% starch is needed to make a floating feed. The expansion of maturing and melting starch (viscoelastic energy) is the main cause of feed float. Under proper process control, even less than 10% starch can be extruded to produce a sunk feed. A single screw extruder is sufficient to make both types of feed, but a twin screw extruder may be required to make smaller sizes of feed.