Anti-crowding fish loading system to be launched commercially next year
Canadian device will be available globally, says New Brunswick-based developer
A Canadian company that has developed a device to reduce crowding of farmed fish during boat loading operations plans to make its technology commercially available next year.
The SmoothMove device from East Coast Innovation Inc., (ECI) is designed to replace the traditional funnel at the end of a fish suction hose. Its integrated cameras provide the operator with underwater visibility, enabling real time monitoring of the population during the transfer.
The first fish harvest using the SmoothMove technology was successfully completed on a vessel in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, in June.
According to ECI, the SmoothMove system creates favourable conditions in front of the loading device that encourage fish to remain within the transfer zone, rather than swim away from it.
Low density
The company, based in St George, New Brunswick, says that with each fish following their natural instincts they remain calm and participate in the transfer, making the process faster and easier with better results. Operators can maintain a more consistent transfer rate while holding the population at a low biomass density, leaving lots of water for every fish that is waiting its turn to go through the fish pump.
This, says ECI, means less crowding, less stress and better health outcomes for the fish. Benefits include enhanced fish welfare, operational efficiencies, increased product quality and increased harvest volumes by achieving better health outcomes.
ECI has been granted 451,675 Canadian dollars (approx. £252,000 / US$322,000) from the Canadian Government’s Atlantic Fisheries Fund towards the cost of design, refinement and validation of the SmoothMove (formerly known as the Voluntary Swim-in) through sea trials. These trials began in 2024 and will continue into 2025. ECI’s current focus is on commercialising its device.
“We plan to have the SmoothMove commercially available for customers in Canada and elsewhere in 2025,” said the company’s communications chief, Nell van Wyngaarden. “We are working with several industry partners now and are building units for commercial application in the new year.”
Former Cooke engineer
ECI is led by Joel Halse, who spent more than a decade as a corporate engineer for salmon farmer Cooke Aquaculture Inc., in Atlantic Canada.
The concept of the SmoothMove – originally called the Voluntary Swim-In, or VSI – was the subject of a talk by ECI representative John Pennell at an aquaculture innovation summit run by the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC) in Glasgow last year.
Talking about early transfer trials between tanks at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Pennell said: “We have been able to prove that our technology works, that salmon like what we’ve created, and we’ve been able to show that the fish return to feed within an hour post-transfer, which is a significant improvement over [today’s use of crowding] where currently it can be potentially days before the fish start to eat again.”
Wrasse project on hold
In January this year, ECI was granted match funding of almost £14,000 from the Scottish Government's marine fund to research, design, and build an innovative prototype solution for the recovery of wrasse used as cleaner fish in salmon pens, but didn't take up the offer.
"Even though we welcomed their decision to support innovation in the cleaner fish sector, we made the difficult decision to decline funding at this time because we realised that we needed to focus our energy and resources on our core project, the SmoothMove transfer of salmon," van Wyngaarden told Fish Farming Expert.
