“Advent of Electro-Chemical waste water treatment in Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) Landscape harbingers a new age in precision aquaculture, industrial scaling up, reduced environmental foot print with higher profitability and food safety”.
We (Aquaculturists) started our coastal farming of aquatic animals initially in a tidal fed pond utilizing wild collected seeds and simulating the natural condition where it habitats. In a natural ecosystem, cycling of dissolved and particulate matter of both animate and inanimate origin are jointly done by photoautotrophs and heterotrophs. This biogeochemical cycling provided the food requirements of the animals living in that environment. We studied the nutrition requirement of the aquatic animals and sourced them from various resources. We have developed the feeds acceptable by the aquatic animals initially. We have also fine-tuned the feed manufacturing through application of various technologies and sourcing the components based on bioavailability. We have then slowly domesticated the aquatic animals and their entire lifecycle in captive condition. Together with nutrition and genetic improvement we have achieved good survival and growth rate and good production. The culture system also evolved from extensive to super intensive and open pond system to recirculation system. Thus in aquatic animal production, seed, feed and system & its water quality plays a major role in the crop assurance. In recent times adaptation of the advanced technologies have led to the production of quality seed and feed and as far as production system evolution is concerned it is very very slow in progress.
Changing climate conditions and unhealthy farming practices lead to huge issues in the global seafood market because of sustainability, environmental, food safety and traceability issues. Unfortunately, most of these seafood safety and trade issues are related to the existing animal production systems. As aquaculture is a market driven activity, these issues need to be solved through a suitable new system in place and bringing a paradigm shift in farming practices. In this context Land based indoor RAS system proved to be suitable and in which we have eliminated biogeochemical cycling and made it a clean/blue water system where the animals enjoy the required water quality and nutrition and happily grow. However, we require a separate waste water treatment system to remove unused feed and metabolites which are highly decomposing in nature. Here comes various methods of treatment in which biofiltration plays a major role as these wastes are products of decomposition. The decomposition of these waste material could lead to the accumulation of both dissolved inorganic and organic fractions of biomolecules C N P. Although we eliminated the role of photoautotrophs in Indoor RAS, we were unable to eliminate the decomposers-heterotrophs as the system is designed for RECIRCULATION of water so as to make the RAS system a more sustainable one with low in land, water and environmental footprints.
In this situation, introduction of Electro-Chemical waste-water treatment in the place of existing biological filtration systems would revolutionise, as the efficiency of biofiltration is having its own limitations like that of any other biological system. Elimination of the biological waste-water treatment with new EC based equipment loop will transform the RAS into a totally controlled system as major components of a culture pond ecosystem are eliminated. Hence It is expected that Our Technology – EC4RAS will bring different dimensions in the evolution of culture systems. As these controlled systems are tech enabled (AI, IOT & Blockchain) and automated, our EC4RAS will play a major role in the transition of aquaculture space.
– Baskaran Manimaran – Founder & CEO