Feed and Faeces: The Challenges of RAS Production

While speaking at Alltech’s Aqua InDepth conference\r\nthis week, Bram Rohaan, production manager at Kingfish Zeeland, took delegates\r\non a virtual tour of the company’s RAS production facility.

The facility currently produces 520 tonnes of kingfish per\r\nyear and recycles 99.6 percent of its water intake. Although Kingfish Zeeland’s\r\ninnovative facility is on the cutting edge of aquaculture technology, there are\r\n– according to Rohaan – obstacles preventing it from reaching its full\r\nproduction potential.

Bram Rohaan gave Aqua InDepth delegates a virtual tour of\r\nthe Kingfish Zeeland RAS facility

Showing conference delegates a photo of broken and crumbling\r\naquafeed, he explained, “this is what we have been experiencing for the past\r\ntwo years – we weren’t able to receive feed without breakage.”

Since RAS requires extra filtration in order to keep the\r\nwater clean and oxygenated, producers need to use feed pellets that are more\r\nresistant to breakage than typical aquafeed. This will improve water quality\r\nand prevent filters from become too saturated with feed particles, said Rohaan.

Though feed quality has recently improved, he explained,\r\naddressing the knock-on issues caused by broken pellets was a daily challenge\r\nfor the RAS facility.

Newer problems are emerging for Kingfish Zeeland too. “Now,\r\nthe new challenge is dealing with the faeces,” says Rohaan. “Kingfish faeces\r\naren’t like salmon or trout faeces – they aren’t solid.” This problem presents\r\nsimilar filtration issues to aquafeed but will require more research into\r\nkingfish biology to resolve.

Rohaan also spoke about how Kingfish Zeeland is aiming to\r\ndouble its production capacity to 1,000 tonnes, with longer-term ambitions to\r\nincrease this to 3,000 tonnes, and is also in the process of developing a new\r\nRAS in the United States.

When answering questions from delegates, Rohaan was\r\nunwilling to divulge details about the company’s production costs. However, he\r\ndid say that labour costs are still an obstacle for the company and that\r\nscaling up production is also a challenge for their future growth.

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Rohaan’s talk was part of Alltech’s Aqua InDepth conference,\r\nwhich brought over 200 delegates from 42 countries to Eindhoven to learn about\r\nthe latest breakthroughs in aquaculture and feed science.

Source : The Fish Site