Mowi Scotland puts a fresh spin on water-borne feeding
Mix of methods is best suited to Scotland's shallower salmon sites
Salmon producer Mowi Scotland is using the best bits of two separate fish feeding systems to suit both its sites and young fish.
As the name indicates, water-borne feeding systems use water to carry feed through pipes from feed barges to salmon pens. This has generally been distributed to the fish at depth, rather than scattered across the surface from a revolving tube in the way that feed from air-blown feeding systems is delivered.
But Mowi Scotland, working with Norwegian supplier Smir, has developed a water-borne system that delivers feed on the surface, and is using it at its Loch Duich and Invasion Bay sites.
Surface best for smolts
Production director Sean Anderson explained that although feeding fish deep in the pen can help mitigate some biological challenges, fish farm sites in Scotland are not deep enough for those benefits to be realised.
“We also feel that traditional underwater feeding has its drawbacks when feeding fish optimally, especially at smolt stage when feeding is so important,” said Anderson.
He added that Mowi has converted its sites at Duich and Invasion Bay to water-borne feed systems for three reasons:
- To reduce energy consumption (approximately 50% lower energy requirement vs traditional blower feed system, making it more environmentally friendly).
- To reduce noise in a sensitive area.
- Invasion Bay and Duich are certified organic farms and the water-based system helps deliver the feed to the pens in the highest quality manner.
“We had to develop our own water spreaders to help deliver the feed into the pen effectively as the standard sub [surface] feeding method is not suitable for smolt acclimatisation which is a critical period for us to get right,” said Anderson.
“By creating a simple motorised water spreader, we were able to deliver the food via the water-borne feed system in the most effective way and the result so far shows fantastic smolt health and performance to date.
“As we gather more data and monitor fish performance, we may look to install more water-borne systems at other farms in the future.”
Watch a video about the new system made by social media influencer and Mowi content creator James Sibley here.
