biocide-free
anti-fouling
solutions
Silver Perch Farming
Ecozean trialed and optimised its fresh water biocide-free anti-foulding solution for Silver Perch farm Jamberoo Aquaculture in New South Wales. The solution improved productivity by increasing output without additional labour input.
The challenge: excessive fouling
Jamberoo farmer Alan grows his Silver Perch stock from fingerling to fully grown over a 24 month period. Throughout this time, except for the coldest winter months, rapid fouling of his enclosures requires a lot of labour to change, clean and maintain the nets. Also frequent transfer of the fish stock and any delay in cleaning the nets can significantly increase stress and risk higher mortality.
To retrieve the nets, transfer the stock and clean the nets of all 16 enclosures required six man days and had to be repeated every 3-6 weeks in summer.
Jamberoo is using a BioGill system to manage ammonia and nitrate levels and a paddle wheel to improve oxygenation of the 4 million litre pond.
The solution: Ecozean anti-fouling treatment
ECOZEAN placed a series of treated and control net panels into the ponds to identify the optimal coating for the local water and nutrient conditions. After three months of monitoring and subsequent analysis a coating was selected and applied to half the nets, leaving controls for each type of net (small, medium and large mesh size).
The results were unequivocal. Three months and several cleaning cycles later final results confirm ECOZEAN coatings not only inhibit the fouling of the nets, they significantly reduce the cleaning effort, saving labour, reducing stock stress and handling, and improving the overall environmental standards.
All ECOZEAN coated nets are now cleaned in a single day without the need to transfer stock and then remove cages from the pond for drying and water-jet cleaning. .
The result: 300% ROI
Twelve months and several cleaning cycles later results confirm ECOZEAN biocide-free anti-fouling coatings not only inhibit the fouling of the nets, they significantly reduce the fouling growth and cleaning effort, saving labour, reducing stock stress and handling, and improving the overall environmental standards.
Output was tripled in the first year without the need for additional labour.
Expectation are to further increase output in the same body of water.
To learn more, please contact us.