Yeah. My BSc is in aquaculture & agricultural business & my MSc was in aquacultural engineering so I learned about the biological, business & engineering sides of fish farming. During the Master's research, I was able to work on three different fish farms for several months each as well as doing some work at the DFO Biological Research station in West Vancouver. Most of my hands-on research was developing underwater camera systems for use on fish farms. They were dual purpose since we set up two to give us stereo images which we recorded on SuperVHS (30 frames per sec) and put through special equipment and programmes to capture pics of individual fish so we could size the fish without physically touching them.
We used the same cameras to watch for feed loss at 40-50' depth. Its amazing but you can actually see feed pellets falling down at that depth if you position the camera to point up.
When I graduated, I worked for 4 years on BC's largest salmon smolt farm where I used the same type of patented camera systems to manage the feed. We knocked the Feed Conversion Ratios (how many kg of feed to produce one kg of fish mass) from over 3.0 to between 0.97-1.17. There was almost no waste feed falling through the net cages by the time I quit. Almost every fish farm in BC & many around the world now use this same technology to control feed wastage. And UBC got all the money from selling the patents on the technology WE developed. That sorta sucks but what can you do.
Anthony
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If you see it, can take care of it, better get it or put it on hold. Otherwise, it'll be gone & you'll regret it!
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