Offshore aquaculture technology: mobile autonomous ocean fish farm

All coastal countries suffer from decreasing fish. The healthy ocean resources are overfished and aquaculture is increasing. However there are no sustainable and economic fish farm technologies to produce competitive seafood in the open ocean.

An inventor at a German company offers a solution. He developed a one point anchored offshore fish farm that is mobile and circulates over a large area, so that no fish manure can compile under cages which would create diseases and sea lice. The innovation´s cylindrical fish cages are submerged below wave trough in low levels, where fish live, when in freedom. This avoids stress for fish and material. The cylindrical cages, like submarines, are linked to a separate, one point anchored service station, like a vessel.

The fish are fed in the submerged cages by a patented, automatic feeder. Harvesting and grading is done by lifting the cages half out of the water and by means of a vacuum pump. The nets do not have to be changed as they are cleaned by sun and air. The offshore fish farm can move on quickly and thus pass any ocean restrictions, such as toxic algae and plastic blooming or hurricanes and it can be moved to coastal harvest-processing units thus avoiding separate transport costs. Dead fish are spotted by a camera and disposed of by an innovative dead fish collector.

A prototype of the system was tested in the Atlantic for more than four years and attended by static works for 10 m wave resistance.

Technical information

- The cylindrical cage has no wear-out technology and is handled by air-pressure only.

- Fixed and flexible air-chambers in the axial pipe submerge the cage to any pre-given depth and lift the cage half out of water for services and net cleaning by sun and air.

- Five air chambers around the periphery at each end of the cage stabilize and rotate the cage to any required position for harvesting, grading, services and net cleaning.

- The mobile service station´s electric energy is provided by wind/sun (50 KW battery).

- The mobile, autonomous ocean fish farm is suitable for shallow and deep waters and has one anchor and no costly mooring system on the sea ground.

- Sensors and cameras supervise the entire fish farm and assure remote control.

- The computerized main panel on the service station has connections to the hermetic box on the submerged cage for steering all functions of the cage.

Partners are sought for license agreements in order to set up such a farm. Possible partners are aquaculture farmers, enterprises or cooperatives and / or marine aquaculture construction companies/investors.