Salmon producer Scottish Sea Farms and Danish fish food maker BioMar have teamed up with scientists to improve the health of fish in Scotland and Australia.
The companies will work with the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC) and the University of Aberdeen on a project to improve the health of salmon’s gills. They will look at factors including the fishes’ diets, water temperatures and the amount of oxygen in the water.
The project aims to develop tests for the disease and to try to make feed that could improve the health of the fishes’ gills. The research covers sites in Scotland and Tasmania.
Ralph Bickerdike, head of fish health at Scottish Sea Farms, said: “The gills play a crucial role in the overall health of a fish, so the more we can learn about how best to protect these vital organs the bigger the advances we can make to further improve welfare and increase survival rates. What’s exciting about this latest collaborative research project is that it takes a holistic view, exploring not just the key factors affecting the gills but also how they might [have an] impact on one another, helping us to identify the best growing conditions for farmed fish health.”
Caroline Griffin, aquaculture innovation manager at SAIC, added: “The project is about finding a way of using the vast amounts of data collected to create the right balance of conditions for salmon, enhancing their resilience. On top of that, the development of biomarkers and new feeds could act as a significant boost to fish health and wellbeing, and our overall understanding of this complex disease.”
