The Effectiveness Of Additional Papain Enzyme In Artificial Diets On Protein Hydrolysis And Protease Enzyme Activity, White Snapper Larva (Lates calcarifer, Bloch 1790)

The use of natural diet in rearing barramundi larvae is less effective, so it needs to be limited as early as possible by using artificial diet. To make it easier for larvae to digest artificial diet, exogenous enzymes were added to the artificial diet. This study aims to determine the dose of papain enzyme and the age of the white snapper larvae which resulted in the best degree of protein hydrolysis and protease enzyme activity. Completely Randomized Design (CRD) was used to evaluate the effect of papain enzyme dose on the degree of protein hydrolysis, with four treatments (0%, 1.5%, 3%, and 4.5%) and 3 replications. A factorial pattern with a completely randomized design was used to determine the papain enzyme dose and larval age on the activity of the protease enzyme. The first factor was the dose of papain enzyme (0%, 1.5%, 3%, and 4.5%) while the second factor was the age of the white snapper larvae (14 days, 17 days and 20 days). The results showed that the difference in papain enzyme doses had a significant effect (P<0.05) on the degree of hydrolysis of diet protein with the best dose of 4.5%, which was 50.30%. The enzyme activity showed that the papain enzyme dose of 4.5% papain was the highest and had a significant difference (P<0.05) with other treatments. While the age treatment obtained the best results at the age of 17 larvae (0.55 U/g larvae/minute). Differences in papain enzyme dose and larval age of barramundi showed significantly different results (P<0.05) but the interaction between the two was not significantly different (P>0.05). Based on the degree of protein hydrolysis of the papain enzyme and the activity of the protease enzyme, white snapper larvae can be fed predigest diet using a 4.5% papain enzyme dose at 17 days of age.