Landing designs ‘most compact RAS to date’ for supermarket fish farm

Land-based fish farming engineering and consultancy company Landing Aquaculture today announced that it had completed the design of a compact recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) that it will supply to an aquaponics project in Östersund, Sweden.

The RAS will yield up to 8 tonnes of Atlantic salmon fillets, while its processed effluents will support a greenhouse capable of producing 100 tonnes of vegetables.

The fish farm will be an addition to a CityFarm project by Agtira, a Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS) business that builds and operates customised greenhouse facilities next to the food supermarkets that buy its vegetables and fish, ensuring they have the freshest produce on their shelves.

Agtira has four greenhouses in Sweden - in Härnösand, Sundsvall, Östersund and Skellefteå – and one RAS, in Härnösand.

The new RAS linked to the Östersund greenhouse will be the first that Netherlands-based Landing Aquaculture has delivered for Agtira. The greenhouse is situated close to the local ICA Maxi Supermarket.

Collaborative innovations

“The design challenges encountered throughout this project have led to collaborative innovations between Landing and Alde Akva, who also provided consultation for the project,” said Landing Aquaculture’s innovation director Carlos Espinal in a press release.

“Notable innovations include the use of Advanced Oxidation Process (AOP) instead of ozone, sidewall drains with dewatering to expedite fish transport from the fish tanks, and bioreactors that regulate the amount of dissolved nutrients reaching the adjacent greenhouse.”

The CityFarm project had allowed Landing to produce its most compact RAS system to date, said Espinal, adding that the company’s turnkey solutions require minimal subcontractor involvement and provide effective real world cost control, while inhouse manufacturing provides extra value to the project.

Fish in by the summer

The installation of the system will take place during the first half of 2024, with the first stocking expected by the summer.

Landing’s previous projects have included the MicroRAS facility built for Norwegian food research institute Nofima at its Sunndalsora research station. Landing built 20 independent MicroRAS units where the effect of the RAS on the reared fish and vice versa can be researched. Every MicroRAS is a fully stand-alone functioning RAS system with a single fish tank, which enables Nofima to perform cutting-edge research into land-based aquaculture.

Each MicroRAS has a 500-litre fish tank, designed to hold up to 60kg/m³ fish under very strict water quality standards, including a maximal dissolved CO₂ concentration of 10 mg/L.