Factory recirculating aquaculture (RAS) has been hailed as the "future of aquaculture," but the reality is that 90% of workshops end up failing. Is it an industry bubble, or an operational error? Today, we delve into five key causes of failure to help you avoid these "deadly traps"!
Blind design: System "congenital deficiency"
Many failures are rooted in poor design, such as:
The biochemical pond is too small: the workshop with 600m³ water body, the biochemical pond is only 15m³, and the water treatment time is only 1.5 minutes, which cannot effectively degrade ammonia nitrogen and nitrite.
Pipeline design error: the 60-meter-long workshop uses 110mm pipeline, and the pressure is insufficient when the water reaches the end, or even the flow is interrupted.
Did not consider the actual farming needs: some design companies lack practical experience, resulting in the system can not match the needs of high-density farming.
Solution:
Employ a professional team to design and ensure that the biochemical tank, pipeline and filtration system match the breeding scale.
The pursuit of low-cost equipment: save money = lose money
In order to reduce costs, many farmers choose inferior equipment, resulting in greater losses:
The capacity of the microfilter is insufficient: the 300 tons should be used, but the 200 tons were bought, and the actual effect may be only 100 tons.
Insufficient oxygen supply: Using aerator instead of oxygen cone, oxygen utilization rate is low, and breeding density does not go up.
Energy consumption explosion: Low-cost devices are often inefficient, and long-term electricity bills far exceed expectations.
Solution:
Choose stable and reliable equipment (such as liquid oxygen, oxygen generators, hyperbaric oxygen cones) and calculate long-term operating costs rather than just looking at the initial investment.
Technology is not in place: thinking that "you can raise equipment"
Many investors mistakenly think that "buying a circulating water system can make money", but ignore technical management:
Failure of water quality control: under high-density culture, excessive ammonia nitrogen and subsalt were not treated in time, resulting in a large area of fish death.
Disease prevention and control lag: lack of professional team, can not timely identify enteritis, rotten gill and other common diseases.
Wrong feeding strategy: excessive feed leads to deterioration of water quality, or insufficient feed affects growth.
Solution:
Regularly train aquaculturists to master core skills such as water quality monitoring and disease prevention and control.
Poor farming management: the devil is in the details
Even with advanced equipment, management vulnerabilities can still lead to failure:
Lack of routine inspection: equipment failure is not found in time.
The disinfection process is not strict: personnel enter and exit without strict disinfection, bringing pathogens.
Incomplete data recording: Relying on experience rather than data to optimize farming strategies.
Solution:
Establish standardized operating procedures (Sops) to ensure that each step is controllable. Intelligent management system (such as online water quality monitoring, automatic alarm).
Breeding breed selection is wrong: the market determines success or failure
"What fish to raise" is more important than "how to raise", but many people ignore market research:
Raising low value-added fish (such as grass carp and carp) does not cover the high RAS costs.
Blindly follow the trend (such as South American white shrimp), but the local market is saturated and difficult to sell.
The technical difficulty is too high (such as the eastern star spot), and the novice is difficult to control.
Solution:
Choose varieties with high added value and stable market demand (such as perch, Mandarin fish, flounder).
Docking sales channels in advance (such as high-end catering, fresh e-commerce).
Only by avoiding these pits can you truly harness the efficiency and environmental benefits of RAS!