Ecological aquaculture systems respond to climate change by turning to safe and precise smart farming
It is not only crops on land that are constantly challenged by extreme weather, but also aquatic products in aquaculture ponds. Sometimes a cold snap can kill an entire pond of fish, and a short period of heavy rain can cause fish ponds to overflow their banks, with fry and fish all lost; crops can rely on cultivation equipment to escape wind, rain, pests and diseases, while aquaculture ponds must rely on the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence for help. By combining sensors, wireless communication, monitors and other technological equipment, plus the application of biotechnology, land-based aquaculture can achieve lower costs, better quality and more controllable risks.
In 2017, the Council of Agriculture of the Executive Yuan officially launched the "Smart Agriculture 4.0" plan to help farmers and fishermen face the management challenges brought by climate change even with limited manpower. Among them, inland aquaculture ponds, which account for about 40% of domestic fishery production, are mostly still open-air aquaculture operations. Unstable temperatures and short periods of heavy rain, along with the resulting fish diseases and medication risks, make aquaculture environment management even more difficult, showing that the domestic aquaculture industry must introduce more precise management models. Two years ago, the Fisheries Research Institute of the Council of Agriculture of the Executive Yuan began research and trials on smart agriculture, and also invited industry players to participate in the plan, hoping to use big data, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things - the "big data, AI and IoT" technologies - to promote the aquaculture industry toward a scientific, efficient and more precise production method.
In 2019, Shengdiao Aquaculture Technology, listed by the Fisheries Research Institute as a highlight demonstration site for smart aquaculture fisheries, has been engaged in tilapia strain breeding and farming for nearly 40 years. Second-generation successor Huang Yisheng sensed the management benefits brought by technology many years ago. Starting from manually collecting data on the farm, installing automatic sensing instruments, and then introducing IoT equipment, he gradually completed a movable aerator and a smart water quality monitoring system. In addition to saving 15% on electricity compared with the past, it now takes only an electronic device to manage the fish ponds. Even earlier, Shengdiao Aquaculture Technology also received a technology transfer of molecular marker identification technology developed by the Fisheries Research Institute, raising selection accuracy to 100% and effectively reducing the breeding and farming costs invested in the selection process. Recently, in addition to the HDPE ecological aquaculture system equipped with monitoring facilities, Huang Yisheng has also focused on seawater tilapia breeding and farming technology, hoping that under conditions of depleted marine resources, aquaculture technology can stably supply a source of high-quality protein.
Automated monitoring system, Huang Yisheng manages fish ponds with his fingertips
Shengdiao Aquaculture Technology supplies about 50 million Taiwan tilapia fry across Taiwan each year. Huang Yisheng, now 32 years old, began helping with the family aquaculture business in junior high school. Seeing his parents care for the fish ponds almost year-round without rest, he believed aquaculture should not be merely physical labor and that part of the work could actually be assisted by machinery and technology. Six years ago, he felt deeply that the climate was unstable. Without the assistance of an automatic monitoring system, he had to go to the fish pond every 1 hour to measure water quality data in order to grasp changes in the pond. Later, to increase monitoring frequency, he switched to timed monitoring machines for assistance, laying the foundation for subsequent automated management.
Huang Yisheng uses pipelines at the bottom of the pond to connect to the adjacent ecological pond, raising tilapia in one pond and basa fish in another, creating an ecological environment for recirculating aquaculture.
"Actually, at first I just wanted to save electricity," Huang Yisheng said. By using monitors as another pair of eyes in his fish ponds, he could more precisely do the right thing at the right time. For example, he once found that at 3 a.m., because air pressure was low and dissolved oxygen levels in the water were also low, starting a paddlewheel aerator would only make surface water flow and would not help change the situation; but the effective range of a disk aerator was limited, and fish would gather around the aerator and become stressed. Therefore, he and his father worked together to design a movable aerator connection device, allowing the paddlewheel to move across the water surface and expand the area of dissolved oxygen.
Understanding conditions in the pond was not enough. In the two main aquaculture areas, equipment such as barometers, wind vanes and rainfall detection spheres was also installed to collect meteorological data. The data has a very wide range of uses. For example, wind direction affects where the paddlewheel aerator should be placed. Turning on the aerator at the windward side helps water flow spread, while turning it on at the leeward side only wastes electricity. Or the barometric pressure value that most people are familiar with also helps assess dissolved oxygen in the pond. Huang Yisheng used the concept of air pressure to explain the proverb "when the south wind blows, fish will raise their heads." This is precisely because the south wind, with high temperature and low pressure, passing through affects dissolved oxygen in the water, so fish at the bottom will float up to breathe because of insufficient oxygen.
This aquaculture tank can be equipped with automatic monitors for water quality and water temperature, and different data can be monitored on the control panel to take appropriate measures.
However, Huang Yisheng admitted that these data only began to deliver the best results in recent years. About 3 years ago, with the assistance of his wife, who has a background in information engineering, he achieved the result of managing fish ponds without going out to patrol the fish. His wife helped identify key influencing factors and set parameters. Through a PLC control system, aerators and water pump motors start according to different values. This smart water quality monitoring system helped them save 15% on electricity. In addition, the system platform on the mobile phone can also monitor the operation status of various facilities. If lightning strikes are suspected, just a touch of a finger can shut down the equipment to maintain the safety of the aquaculture pond. Huang Yisheng believes that the ultimate goal of these facilities is to save time and effort, so that the aquaculture industry is no longer a physical job requiring 24-hour standby and only able to rest briefly in winter each year. Aquaculture farmers can also have a better quality of life. "Technology comes from human laziness," Huang Yisheng said with a smile.
In addition, in view of conditions in the aquaculture industry such as groundwater extraction and low winter temperatures being unfavorable for aquaculture, Huang Yisheng and his father also invested in the development of systematic aquaculture equipment and ecological aquaculture trials. They used plastic steel and HDPE (high-density polyethylene) materials to design aquaculture tanks with insulation effects. Because these tanks are isolated from the soil and have an assembled, detachable structure, they are easy to move and can also prevent water quality from being contaminated by soil and deteriorating. Over the past 4 years, Huang Yisheng and his father have also used these aquaculture tanks for ecological aquaculture trials with recirculating water. By using the farming characteristics of different species, they connected the aquaculture tanks and ponds to each other with pipelines. For example, sediment and uneaten feed can flow through pipelines into other ponds, using filter-feeding shellfish and species such as tilapia, which are more tolerant of aquaculture environments, to make recirculating aquaculture possible.
After years of collecting data, developing automatic monitoring systems, and improving aquaculture equipment such as paddlewheel aerators and aquaculture tanks, Huang Yisheng already has a standardized aquaculture process and can give facility recommendations tailored to different customers' aquaculture environments, allowing aquaculture farmers to spend money where it matters most.
Molecular markers become a common language between industry and academia, making Taiwan tilapia breeding more precise
Shengdiao Aquaculture Technology, engaged in tilapia breeding and farming for nearly 40 years, has relied on experience and a good eye for breeding, but there was still a gap before reaching 100% accuracy. However, with the support of molecular marker technology, the success rate of selecting target broodstock can approach 100%, not only reducing the cost of raising non-target broodstock, but also effectively controlling the management of preserved broodstock strains and the performance breeding of commercial broodstock.
Zeng Fusheng, a researcher in the Aquaculture Division of the Fisheries Research Institute who helped Shengdiao Aquaculture Technology learn molecular marker technology, explained: "The same technology can meet our research needs and can also be applied to their business operations." Molecular marker technology is mostly used in disease detection or biological genetic research. Three years ago, when transferring 6 pairs of seawater tilapia TFS strain broodstock to the industry operator, the molecular markers of that strain were first listed as one of the tracking items. When the operator crossed the offspring of that strain with other broodstock cultivated on the farm, unsuitable broodstock would be eliminated, and those they judged after evaluation to be relatively suitable for producing sellable offspring would be retained. Then the Fisheries Research Institute tracked the aquaculture traits of these sellable offspring and recorded the molecular markers that the operator considered to indicate good varieties. In the future, when the operator sees a specific marker, they will know it is a variety suitable for farming. Zeng Fusheng said molecular markers are like ID cards. If it is an economically important fish species, good characteristics should be retained. External descriptions can be inconsistent, but with genetic assistance, objective judgments can be made.
Huang Yisheng began helping with the family aquaculture business in junior high school and developed a good eye that can roughly determine the number of fry at a glance.
Zeng Fusheng emphasized that these recorded molecular markers only reflect commercial needs and do not necessarily have academic characteristics and definitions. However, these data can help academia further understand the relationship between molecular markers and aquaculture traits, and can also use the recorded molecular markers to continuously track fish species transferred out through technology transfer. In addition, through these data, when aquaculture farmers report problems with selection or farming, researchers can communicate effectively with them and provide assistance. This is no longer like the past, when aquaculture farmers used their own set of vocabulary for appearance identification, leaving researchers unable to understand.
Huang Yisheng mentioned that when communicating with researchers earlier, each side had its own set of terms for judging selected broodstock, and it was very difficult to connect them. Now they can communicate through molecular markers. He recalled: "In the past, we judged by the naked eye and eliminated unsuitable fish, thinking that if we selected fish at the top of the pyramid there would be no problem, but it was not accurate enough." Another advantage of molecular markers is that they can be used when broodstock are still small. It is only necessary to cut a piece of fin and use PCR amplification technology for testing to track the fish's lineage, judge its characteristics after growing up and manage them, raising the selection success rate to nearly 100% and effectively saving breeding costs.
At present, Shengdiao Aquaculture Technology has fully mastered seawater tilapia breeding and farming technology, lacking only a suitable farm for stable production. Huang Yisheng believes that tilapia's demand for dissolved oxygen is not as strict as that of white shrimp, and there are varieties adapted to both fresh and salt water. Most importantly, "plant protein can be exchanged for meat." Under the dilemma of gradually depleted marine resources, the prospects are promising. That is why he continues to expand facilities and technical capital for research and development, hoping that this tilapia that everyone can afford will not only be a low-priced protein source, but can also gain higher economic value through upgraded farming environments.
This article is reprinted from the June 2019 issue of Harvest Magazine. For the Harvest Magazine e-book platform, please refer to: udn Reading Bar, TAAZE, HyRead, Zinio, Airiti Library, Kono
