One look and you'll know! Essential sensor knowledge for aquaculturists to learn! Make your aquaculture production double quickly!

Foreword

Up to now, due to the rapid development of China's aquaculture industry and the continuous improvement of residents' living standards, thus promoting the continuous increase of China's total aquatic production, and consequently, China's aquaculture density and aquaculture area is also rapidly expanding.

According to statistical data from the Fisheries and Fishery Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, since 2015, China's total aquatic product production has shown a continuous growth in development, and by 2020, the total national aquatic product production will be 65,490,200 tonnes, an increase of 1.1% year-on-year.

And since the beginning of 1989 to 2021, China's total aquatic products also accumulated 32 consecutive years to maintain the world's first, and has maintained a rapid growth rate.

To date, China's aquaculture industry has accumulated a wealth of experience in long-term production practices, while with the upgrading of environmental requirements and policy guidance in recent years, more and more enterprises have begun to try to improve the efficiency of aquaculture by introducing advanced technology.

However, in the actual production process, some farmers still do not pay attention to the daily management of ponds and the improvement of equipment and facilities.

As a result, they rely on traditional experience, blindly baiting or manually adjusting the water level, or even just cleaning the pond regularly, which is a waste of manpower and material resources and does not achieve the expected yield results.

Therefore, how to effectively solve this problem has become an important issue for many farmers today.

How can modern science and technology be used to rapidly double farming yields?

So, using modern science and technology, aquaculture people should learn which modern science and technology, we how to use science and technology to improve the existing mode of farming, so that farming production quickly doubled?

Before understanding this issue, we first understand China's aquaculture model. There are three main types of aquaculture in China: rough farming, finishing and high-density finishing.

Rough farming is the placement of seedlings in small to medium-sized naturally formed waters, relying entirely on nature's natural bait to raise aquatic products. Finishing is the raising of aquatic plants and animals in more enclosed and smaller bodies of water by baiting and artificial fertilisation. High density finishing is the use of water, temperature control, oxygenation and the feeding of high quality bait in small bodies of water for high density farming.

In both finishing and high-density finishing (also known as aquaculture), elements such as pond substrate, water level and various environmental factors are crucial to the growth of fish and shrimp organisms, so the most important technical key to improving production in the aquaculture industry is to improve water quality indicators.

This requires control of not only basic data such as water temperature, light and pH, but also parameters such as dissolved oxygen (DO) and turbidity and conductivity, which should not be underestimated.

Figure: Topology of RIKA aquaculture environmental monitoring system

For this reason, in response to the current situation in the industry, RIKA Technology has proposed an intelligent aquaculture monitoring solution based on IoT technology, which mainly relies on various sensors and big data analysis software to complete the whole process of monitoring water quality, and then build an "aquaculture environment monitoring system", which can provide farmers with convenient The solution relies on various sensors and big data analysis software to complete the entire aquaculture water quality monitoring process.

Picture: RIKA aquaculture environmental monitoring project diagram

It uses intelligent pond data collection to provide water monitoring, remote control and management functions, and makes full use of IoT technology to achieve real-time monitoring and early warning of basic parameters in the aquaculture process, so that managers can understand the pond situation and monitor the whole process in detail from anywhere and at any time.

RIKA Aquaculture Environmental Monitoring System

Main products

RK500-01 temperature sensor

The RK500-01 temperature sensor is used to measure the temperature of liquid media and can be used in applications such as automatic weather stations, pond or reservoir water temperature detection. The product can be put into water. The sensor uses a precision RTD as the sensing element and has built-in signal sampling and amplification, zero drift and temperature compensation, which makes it characterised by high measurement accuracy and good stability.

In the aquaculture process, different aquatic organisms have different requirements for water temperature. For example, silver carp, bighead carp, grass carp and pomfrets are warm water fish, and the suitable water temperature is 20°C to 30°C. Therefore, in order to create the most suitable temperature environment for the animals, it is necessary to use temperature sensors to keep track of the temperature changes in the pond water.

RK500-04 Dissolved oxygen sensor

The RK500-04 Dissolved Oxygen (DO) sensor is designed based on the fluorescence principle and equipped with a high performance oxygen permeable membrane. With short response time, accurate measurement and stable performance, it can be widely used in water treatment projects, aquaculture and other applications that require continuous monitoring of dissolved oxygen in solution.

Fish in the water is extremely sensitive to the oxygen content of the water, the dissolved oxygen required for the normal growth and development of the main aquaculture fish is generally above 4-5mg/L, when the fish feed well, grow fast and have high bait utilisation.

When the dissolved oxygen is below 4-5mg/L, the feeding and growth of fish will be affected to a certain extent.

When the dissolved oxygen is lower than about 2mg/L, fish basically stop feeding.

floating heads when dissolved oxygen drops to about 1mg/L.

When the dissolved oxygen drops further to 0.5mg/L, the fish will die of suffocation.

It is therefore important to use a dissolved oxygen sensor for monitoring fish ponds.

RK500-12 pH sensor

The RK500-12 pH sensor is the ideal solution for measuring pH values. It does not require specialist calibration instruments and is simple to operate. It can be used to continuously measure the pH of water.

If the pH of the pond water remains below 6.0 (strong acids) and above 10.0 (strong bases) for a long period of time, the growth of fish is inhibited, metabolic functions are affected and even death can result directly.

Different fish also have a greater ability to adapt to pH changes in pond water, and they are not exactly the same, e.g. the pH adaptation range of cyprinids, grass carp, silver carp and bighead carp is 4.6 to 10.2; while the pH adaptation range of carp is 4.4 to 10.4. Therefore, we can adjust the appropriate pH to suit the growth of fish and shrimps according to the actual situation.

RK500-13 conductivity/salinity sensor

The RK500-13 liquid conductivity/salinity/TDS sensor uses advanced anti-polarisation technology, internal signal isolation and a strong anti-interference capability. The measurements are stable, accurate, maintenance-free and easy to install.

Conductivity is the ability to pass current through a body of water. Pure water has a small conductivity, which increases when chemicals such as inorganic acids, bases or salts as well as heavy metals and impurities increase in the water, making conductivity one of the most important indicators of the quality of the response water.

RK500-15 Ammonia Nitrogen Sensor

The RK500-15 ammonia sensor uses a PVC film based ammonium ion electrode to measure the amount of ammonium ions in water, with temperature compensation for fast, simple and accurate measurements. The ammonium ion electrode's internal reference solution leaches out of the microporous salt bridge very slowly, resulting in a very stable reference system and a longer electrode life than ordinary industrial electrodes.

Ammonia nitrogen in aquaculture mainly comes from substrate release, decomposition of residual bait, manure pollution, respiratory emissions and blind fertilisation. Therefore, controlling the concentration of ammonia nitrogen can effectively prevent or reduce the occurrence of water pollution.

Conclusion

With the advancement of science and technology, the aquaculture industry has now entered a new stage of development, with factory-based production and intensive operation becoming the trend in the development of China's modern aquaculture industry.

As a result, the deep treatment of water bodies has also become a very urgent issue. But with this boost, China's aquaculture environmental monitoring system is also becoming more and more perfect.

Customer Case Show

Wuhan fish monitoring project

Indoor aquaculture monitoring project in Zhao'an County