With more than 4 million tons annually Whiteleg shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) is the most farmed seafood species in the world. It is dominating also the global shrimp production as it is much easier to farm than other species, which also makes this species suitable for indoor land-based farming. The popularity of shrimp reflects the demand for healthy and convenient food, which is consumed all over the world with versatile preparation methods. Due to the environmental and social challenges of the shrimp industry in Asia and South America and an increasing awareness of stakeholders in importing countries about it there is a rising demand to use new technologies. However, in contrast to most finfish aquaculture several concepts have been developed over the last decades in terms of water treatment (biofloc, aquamimicry, RAS or hybrid systems) and water basin designs (round tanks, raceways, stacked shallow-raceway).
Oceanloop is an innovative RAS, which can be used as a platform technology for the farming of seafood. The concept differs significantly from conventional RAS. It is using raceways to allow a low head design and flexible basin segmentation. Flow-through movable walls can be added, removed, or changed in position easily to react on changing demands at short notice as harvest size, stocking intervals or biomass. Also, the design allows to gentle move the farmed seafood without piping until harvest. This guarantees highest welfare standards for the farmed species. The system operates without piping in the main water recirculation, which is one of the main reasons that there is no need for purging off-flavor. For farming bottom dwelling species as shrimp, which require surface area instead of water volume, Oceanloop has developed special habitats as a basin interior to also allow an efficient volumetric farming of shrimp. Due to the extremely high increase of horizontal surface area and short production cycles of 90 days from post-larvae to harvest size of 30g the annual productivity per area of water surface is 1,600t/ha meaning more than 200 times increase compared to pond farming in South America (7t/haa).
Over the last 8 years the R&D works include the implementation of fast-growing genetics, from partners with most-advanced selective breeding programs; the development of a grow-out feed fitting the requirements of the species and RAS; the use of computer vision to track biomass growth, mortalities and welfare; predictive modelling of growth, feeding and stocking management and digitalized monitored standard operational routines.
a Resource use in whiteleg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei farming in Ecuador - Boyd - 2021 - Journal of the World Aquaculture Society - Wiley Online Library