Seafood CRC: controlling biofouling of pond aerators on marine prawn farms

Funded Activity Summary

Biofouling of aeration equipment is a significant farm management issue and production cost for Australian marine prawn farms. Defouling aeration equipment has a high labour demand and once fouled the energy efficiency of paddle-wheels and other aerating equipment can be markedly reduced, leading to elevated electricity costs and shorter equipment life. The estimated cost of biofouling is a minimum of $1,000 per hectare per crop when considering the additional labour, maintenance and electricity costs that it creates. This cost figure however does not include the impact of aerator fouling on prawn production levels which potentially could be far greater. The industry uses up to 10x aerators per hectare and they consume 70-80% of total farm energy use. It is estimated that at the peak of the production season around 6,000 2hp aerators are in use in ponds across the prawn industry alone.

Ensuring appropriate and timely aerator defouling is conducted is a significant farm issue. Manual defouling is one of the least desired tasks on the farms as it is dirty, laborious and workers are susceptible to multiple skin cuts that are prone to infection. Consequently it can be difficult to maintain staff to undertake this task for any length of time.
There is no data available on the impact of biofouling on the aeration efficiency, for example the oxygen transfer rate, and this information is critical to maximising benefit from mitigation strategies from both a practical and economic stand point.

The relevant industry body, the APFA through the R&D Committee, has assessed prevention of aerator biofouling as a priority issue and has recommended that the project commence as close as possible to the start of the current production season.

The proposed project falls within the Seafood CRC Theme – ‘Aquaculture Innovation’ as the objective is to improve production efficiency.


Objectives:
1. Review biofouling control options and select those with greatest potential for application on prawn farms.
2. Assess the impact of aerator biofouling on prawn farms.
3. Transfer methods for implementing aerator biofouling controls to the prawn farming industry.
4. Evaluate selected biofouling control options under commercial conditions.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 24-10-2011

End Date: 13-10-2013

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $42,600.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Aquaculture | Biofouling | Communications | Data | Disease | Economic | Innovation | Modelling | Recirculation System | Risk reduction | Social Licence | Sustainability

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