Floating Fish Feed Machine

This floating fish feed machine also called dry type fish feed machine is widely used for producing high-grade aquatic feed pellets for fish, catfish, shrimps, crab etc. It has become the ideal equipment for small and medium-sized fish farms and fish feed processing plants.

Types of Fish Feed Making Machine For Sale

Parameter of Fish Feed Making Machine

Features of Floating Fish Feed Pellet

• High in protein and low in carbohydrates. Livestock feeds tend to contain less than 20% protein, while aquaculture feeds are always 30% to 40, with green turtle and eel feeds containing as much as 65% to 70% protein.
• Small particles. Due to the physiological characteristics of aquatic animals, such as short intestines and intestines, the fineness of aquatic feed should be smaller than that of poultry feed to accelerate digestion and absorption. For example, when producing eel feed or prawn feed, the pellet size should reach 80-120 mesh.
• The feed particles extruded by single screw extruder have compact structure, high cohesion and water resistance. For example, shrimp feed requires water stability of pelleted feed for up to 2 hours.
• Easy to digest and absorb, fish feed extruder can produce heavy aquatic animal feed. By eliminating most of the toxins, antinutritional factors and antitrypsin in the urine contained in the raw materials, the feed is easy for animals to digest and absorb, improve the digestibility and utilization rate of nutrients, is conducive to protein transformation and gelatinized starch, easy for fish and animals to digest and absorb.

How does Fish Feed Extruder Work?

The raw materials are uniformly fed into the screw extrusion chamber of the fish feed extruder by the feeder. The volume of the extrusion chamber decreases gradually along the direction of material movement, and the expansion pressure of the material increases gradually.

At the same time, the movement of the material in the extrusion chamber is accompanied by strong shear and friction. Sometimes according to the need, can be installed in the expansion outdoor electric heating auxiliary. This combined effect causes the temperature of the material to rise sharply and the starch in the material to gelatinize. The whole material becomes a melted plastic gel.

Until the moment when the material is discharged from the hole of the extrusion mold, the pressure suddenly drops to 0.1mpa, the water quickly turns into steam, and its volume increases, so the volume of the material also expands. The water vapor further exudes, causes the material moisture content to drop, simultaneously the temperature drops rapidly. The material then immediately condenses, creating a large number of micropores in the condensed colloidal material.

Continuously extruded column or sheet puffed products are cut with a rotary cutter and cooled, sometimes with subsequent drying and spraying procedures for additives such as fats, vitamins, etc.

Difference Between Dry and Wet Fish Feed Extruder

Fish feed extruders can be divided into dry and wet fish feed extruders according to the moisture content of the raw material.

Dry type

This machine uses friction to heat the material and extrudes it from the die hole under the action of the screw extruder. As the pellets emerge from the machine, the pressure and temperature drop sharply and the water evaporates. The material is then expanded into pellets with a porous structure. During this process, the humidity level is between 15% and 20%.

Wet type

The wet type works on a similar principle to the dry type. However, the former requires water or steam to be added to the machine to increase the moisture to 20%, or over 30% during the process. It raises the temperature of the material by steaming.

Fish feed manufacturing process

After choosing the right formula, the next key is to master the production process of planktonic fish feed.

Mixing and Grinding

The main raw materials of planktonic fish feed have to be mixed and crushed to be made into pellets, so to make planktonic fish feed, Lima company recommends the use of relevant specialized equipment – fish feed mixer and fish feed shredder, the purpose is to produce high-quality planktonic feed suitable for fish digestion, with good water stability. After the raw materials are weighed according to the weight ratio in the formula, the fish farmers grind the raw materials into 60-100 mesh by water drop type fish feed crusher, and then add other ingredients to the fish feed mixer for uniform mixing. Grinding helps to increase the exposed surface area of the ingredients, improve the uniformity of the mix, and make the feed easier to digest, which is very important for small eaters like fish. In addition, mixing and crushing feeds also aid in granulation and extrusion.

Granulation and Extrusion

During extrusion, the raw material generates heat under the action of mechanical energy through the screw, shear plate and the inner wall of the expansion chamber. The material is actually fused under high temperature and high pressure and extruded from the fish feed extruder. Due to the sudden decrease in pressure, the volume expansion is realized. Customers can choose extruder with different die hole sizes according to their actual needs, as Fan Wei can provide fish feed extruder from 0.9 mm to 12 mm, which is suitable for the different growth requirements of fish at various growth stages.

Dry and Cool

When the planktonic fish feed leaves the granulation mold, it must be the particles with higher moisture content. In the case of sticky pellets, farmers need specialized and improved drying equipment after they have the ability to make floating feed. After drying and cooling, the feed can be stored in a dry ventilated chamber to maintain quality. The use of fish feed dryers/chillers makes it easier to store feed, which also makes drying/cooling an important part of feed processing.