GUDP FitFish Project @ University of Copenhagen

Link to GUDP FitFish O₂ Aquaculture Model: http://o2aquaculturemodel.pythonanywhere.com/

Link to Research Gate Project "GUDP FitFish Project

Fig. : Sea cage with 150.000 rainbow trout and our on-line buoy with profiling CTD

The University of Copenhagen has in collaboration with i.a. the company OxyGuard, the feed producer BioMar, DTU-Aqua and two Danish aquaculture companies, started the development of a new monitoring system, which will measure water current velocity and the water oxygen content in aquaculture.

“Many fish farmers measure the oxygen concentration in the water once a day - typically in the morning and not in a fish pen. But it does not give, for example, a picture of how conditions are in the pen at different tide/flow and feed conditions. We want to try to measure the conditions of the fish around the clock” says John Fleng Steffensen, fish physiologist and project manager at the University of Copenhagen.

By continuously adjusting the amount of fish feed in relation to the fish's real needs at a given time, the project expects to be able to reduce feed consumption. At the same time, it will reduce the discharge of nutrients to the marine environment and thereby reduce the risk of oxygen depletion when surplus feed is broken down on the seabed.

The GUDP project "FitFish" contributes to the development of the aquaculture industry, which wants to reduce nutrient emissions as much as possible. The project helps to limit the negative environmental impact even with increased production of aquaculture fish. “It has been difficult for aquaculture fish farmers to increase their production and at the same time reduce nutrient emissions. We hope that with the project we can help the farmers to create a better overview of the amount of feed that the fish need - and thereby help to create a better marine environment, because not so much feed is wasted ", says John Fleng Steffensen. One of the aims is to send a SMS text to the fish farmer if oxygen conditions below 70 and 80 % are expected within the next 6 hours.

With the aquaculture strategy for 2014-2020, the Danish Government, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, has announced that they want the production of seafood from aquaculture to be increased by 25%.

The goal is, in addition to developing an improved feed plan, to end up with a newly developed system that is cheaper and better than the current solutions available on the international market.

The project hopes that fish farmers will make use of the new system, where monitoring the condition of the fish can to some extent replace the daily supervision of aquaculture. “We want to develop a system that shows the fish farmers in real time about changes in the oxygen concentration, so that they can continuously adjust the amount of feed. The challenge is that at the same time it should not be difficult for the breeders to continuously correct the amount of feed ",

concludes John Fleng Steffensen.

Heidrikur Bergsson: Univ. of Copenhagen, Marine Biological Section, heidrikur.bergsson@bio.ku.dk

Morten Bo Søndergård Svendsen, Copenhagen Academy for Medical Education and Simulation,

Rigshospitalet, morten.bo.soendergaard.svendsen@regionh.dk

John Fleng Steffensen: Univ. of Copenhagen, marine Biological Section, JFSteffensen@bio.ku.dk

Link to John’s website: www.mbl.ku.dk/JFSteffensen

Funded by GUDP, Danish Ministry of Environment and Food.

Link to GUDP FitFish O₂ Aquaculture Model: http://o2aquaculturemodel.pythonanywhere.com/

If using the model, please cite by using DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4629693

A short “manual for dummies” will be written and uploaded for the O₂ aquaculture model ASAP.

Link to this Research Gate GUDP FitFish Project:

Project participants:

Univ. of Copenhagen

DTU-Aqua

OxyGuard

BioMar

Dansk Akvakultur

Musholm

Snaptun Laks

Hjarnø Havbrug

Updated March 2021 / JFS