Effect of Dietary Sodium in Growth Performance of Male Nile Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus

Dear Mr. Ediwarman,
Yes, you can use diformates in catfish. We have done so before - with African catfish, as well as with Pangasius. Novindo in Indonesia is not a person. It is a distributing company based in Jakarta. Please contact me under my e-mail address at ADDCON and I can forward Novindo's adress and a responsible person.

Dear Dr. Christian,

Thank you for your information. At present I've found sodium diformate FormiNDF in Indonesia. Since this is the only diformate in Indonesia, therefore can I mix-self them with my tilapia, broiler and swine diets with respective dosage?

For info to Mr. Ediwarman,

If you have not found yet FormiNDF in Indonesia, just kindly contact the email below:
joko.raharjo@novindo.co.id (Mr. Joko Raharjo)

Sincerely,
Peyi

Dear Dr. Velez,
Thank you for your comments. The use of various organic acids or their salts gave continuously a beneficial impact on tilapia. I have monitored many publications on that topic over the last decade. You are right, the stomach pH of a tilapia can be below 2.0 - thus an additionally acidification of the stomach may not be necessary. However, feeding diets with ~30% crude protein will certainly buffer this system and it may take the fish a certain amount of energy as well as time to reduce the pH in the stomach to "normal levels". Here, acidification may support the protein digestion - as this has been reported previously. Furthermore, the growth enhancing effect may come not only from the pH-impact, but also from the bacterial inhibition (reduction of pathogens, energy sparing) as well as the improved mineral availability. But you are right - to date we mostly monitor the impact only (there is a meta-analysis on the impact of potassium diformate in tilapia available), but speculate on the reasons why...