OPTIMIZATION OF CULTURE MEDIA INGREDIENT AND INOCULUM ON THE YIELD OF TUBIFEX WORMS AT PILOT SCALE LEVEL

Abstract

While the first experiment evaluated the effect of media ingredient mustard
oil cake wetted in cattle blood, rice gruel and subsurface clean water, the second
experiment focused on the effects of two doses of media levels 75 and 100 mg
cm-2 and two levels of inoculums 75 and 100 mg cm-2, on the yield of tubifex
worms. Wet medium did not have significant effect on the yield of tubifex
worms harvested after 70-day culture duration. Applying 75 mg cm-2 mustard oil
cake as media ingredient resulted in the significantly higher (p < 0.05) yield than
that of 100 mg cm-2. On the contrary, worms’ inoculum at the rate of 100 mg cm-2
gave significantly higher yield than did the 75 mg cm-2 inoculum. The results of
this study have demonstrated that mustard oil can be used as the only culture
media ingredient and the combination of 75 mg cm-2 media ingredient and 100
mg cm-2 worm’s inoculum is the best combination at pilot scale level culture of
tubifex.