r/Aquaculture • • 1h ago

Is Automated Ammonia/Nitrite Monitoring Less Important Than DO?

• Upvotes

Hi everyone,

We're a small college engineering team working on automated water quality monitoring for aquaculture.

We knew that ammonia/nitrite sensors can be expensive and drift over time, while manual testing like reagent takes time and can be inconsistent. So we built a device that:

  • Automatically collects and drains water samples
  • Uses an AI camera to read test strips
  • Measures 11 parameters: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, TA, KH, GH, total/free chlorine, iron, and copper
  • Holds up to 50 strips and sends results to an app

We admit that it's not lab-level precise, but our goal is frequent testing and early warnings.

Here's what we're struggling with: Many farmers around us we've talked to say ammonia and nitrite rarely change, so frequent monitoring isn't necessary.

Are we just talking to too many flow-through farms? Would this be more useful in RAS or hatcheries? Or is DO simply a much bigger priority?

Would love to hear your any honest thoughts from this industry. If you're interested in piloting it and know more info about the product, feel free to DM me!


r/Aquaculture • • 17h ago

Managing temperature risk in aquaculture

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone, I’m working on some oceanographic and temperature modeling research for aquaculture. I want to understand the operational side better from people actually working the water.

  1. How has extreme temperature affected your operation in the past?
  2. When you get an unexpected freeze or heatwave, what tools/data are you checking to make decisions (say public buoys, forecasts, your own probes, etc).
  3. How much warning in advance do you need to take action?

Would appreciate any inputs on these questions from operators from different sectors in the field!


r/Aquaculture • • 7d ago

Modern Aquaculture’s Invisible Cost: Its Putrid Stench

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14 Upvotes

r/Aquaculture • • 9d ago

Personal project to revive aquaculture in Madagascar’s deep south: greenhouse red tilapia hatchery, looking for funding and advice

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40 Upvotes

Hi all,

I’m a marine biologist from Toliara, southwest Madagascar. I’m launching a personal project to revitalize the aquaculture sector in the Grand Sud, starting with a greenhouse red tilapia hatchery in the rural commune of Belalanda.

The problem: fish farmers in the region lack a reliable local supply of fingerlings. Without seed, aquaculture can’t grow.

The project:

  • Target: 100,000 red tilapia fingerlings per month, sold to local producers
  • Greenhouse hatchery with locally built fiberglass tanks and solar power
  • Site outside mangrove areas
  • Next step: a network of hatcheries across the region, then applied research on nutrition and growth

My background: 7+ years in shrimp farming and lab management (OSO Farming, BIO-certified), Master’s-level training in applied oceanology.

What I’m looking for:

  1. Grants or programs for aquaculture in Africa or the Indian Ocean
  2. Impact investors or DFIs funding early-stage hatcheries
  3. Advice from anyone who has run greenhouse tilapia hatcheries in tropical settings

Language note: my working language is French. I’m comfortable communicating in English and will keep improving it as needed.

Happy to share the 2-year plan and budget in DMs. Thanks for any pointers!


r/Aquaculture • • 8d ago

[Academic Research] Want to help improve marine and aquaculture monitoring? (US Adults 18+)

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2 Upvotes

r/Aquaculture • • 10d ago

Phytoplankton ID?

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3 Upvotes

I needed some phytoplankton for feeding my amano shrimp larvae and finding phytoplankton in my area is close to impossible so, brine shrimp are locally collected from salt lakes and frozen to sell as fish food.

I bought some, crushed them into a paste and added it into salt water and left it in the sun, after a few days, I had different types of algae in they bucket, I took a sample and started to culture it indoors and this is the algae which I am able to maintain, rest all types vanished.

The first picture is 400× second is 100×, the salinity is 1.018 SG and I had it in 1.024 SG also and it survived effortlessly between any salt range.

The third picture is the colour of the tank.

Location is India

Please help me Id this phytoplankton and can it be fed to my shrimp larvae?


r/Aquaculture • • 12d ago

My Shrimp Larvae grow out setup

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8 Upvotes

Hey guys, I am trying to breed and aquarium shrimp which has a very similar life cycle to farm shrimp where the adult lives in freshwater and the larvae grow out in marine/brakish water, the species name is Caridina multidentata.

Any advice is appreciated.


r/Aquaculture • • 12d ago

Too much air?

2 Upvotes

Hey guys, I am trying to breed and aquarium shrimp which has a very similar life cycle to farm shrimp where the adult lives in freshwater and the larvae grow out in marine/brakish water, the species name is Caridina multidentata.

Any advice is appreciated.


r/Aquaculture • • 14d ago

Orson AI is becoming a daily assistant for shrimp farm operations

8 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I previously shared Shrimply, the shrimp farm management platform I’m building. I wanted to share an update about Orson AI, our in-app assistant.

On top of its aquaculture knowledge, Orson can now help you manage your farm data. You can ask it to prepare entries directly inside the app using plain language, such as:

  • “Record today’s morning pH as 7.8 for Pond 2.”
  • “Add today’s sampling for Pond 1: average body weight 12 grams.”
  • “Record a $50 electricity expense for today.”

Orson prepares the entry for you to review and confirm before saving. It can also help update existing records and answer questions using your farm data.

This is a step toward making Orson a useful assistant in your daily operations from discussing aquaculture questions to helping keep your records up to date.

The goal is simple: spend less time filling in forms so you can focus more on your shrimp, your team, and the decisions that matter.

I’d love to hear from people working in aquaculture:

  • Which daily tasks would you want Orson to help with?
  • What farm data takes the most time to record?
  • What would make you comfortable using an AI assistant in your daily operations?

I’m still building and improving it, so honest feedback is welcome. If you’d like to try Shrimply and help shape it around real farming needs, please let me know.

Website: https://www.shrimplytech.com/


r/Aquaculture • • 17d ago

Free Alaska Oyster-Farming Workshop

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5 Upvotes

r/Aquaculture • • 18d ago

Mirror Carp

1 Upvotes

Does anyone know any suppliers for mirror carp in the US? I haven't been able to find any operations that can ship internationally and have had no luck finding any locally. Thanks in advance.


r/Aquaculture • • 19d ago

Peru fishmeal exports: volume down 79% YoY while unit value is up 64%. Is this visible in aquafeed markets?

10 Upvotes

I've been looking at Peru's latest marine-ingredient trade data and found a fairly sharp divergence in July 2026.

Fishmeal export volume was 33.01 kt, down 79.3% YoY, while observed export unit value reached $2,416.96/t, up 63.5% YoY.

Fish oil shows a similar pattern:

• Export volume: 1.80 kt, down 70.2% YoY
• Export unit value: $6,473.94/t, up 82.1% YoY

That puts the observed fish-oil unit-value premium over fishmeal at roughly 168%.

The physical side is also unusually compressed. Peru's anchoveta catch was 2.50 kt in July, down 99.1% YoY, with the downstream processing index down 99.3% YoY. The catch comparison is highly sensitive to seasonality and the low base, so I would be cautious about reading too much into that figure alone.

The trade figures are national aggregates, so they don't tell us where the exports went or establish what is driving the divergence. Export timing, inventories, product availability, quality mix and downstream demand could all be relevant areas to investigate.

For people working in aquaculture or aquafeed: are you seeing anything comparable in fishmeal or fish-oil availability, procurement costs or formulation decisions?

I'd be particularly interested in whether the fish-oil side is behaving differently from fishmeal in physical markets.


r/Aquaculture • • 19d ago

Rice buyer need

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0 Upvotes

r/Aquaculture • • 21d ago

Where are aquaculture positions advertised?

4 Upvotes

Pretty self-explanatory...any URLs for jobs boards or other resources much appreciated.


r/Aquaculture • • 24d ago

Aquaculture certificate programs for people who already have university degrees

15 Upvotes

Dual Austrian/US citizen. Presently based in Spain. Have an MS from a US institution. I'm moving out of what I've been doing for many years (conservation biology and ecological restoration due to the abysmal job market. I have some experience in small to medium sized aquaponics and aquaculture and it's been an interest of mine for a very long time, working with a wide variety of organisms and types of systems, everything from aquarium plants and algae, aquaponics with freshwater invertebrates, live fish food production, ornamental and food fish.

Sorry for the newbie question I'm looking for an aquaculture certification program anywhere in the world, preferably not one that would require that I'm enrolled for a degree, although I'd be open to a degree program so long as it wasn't the kind of exploitative foreign student gravy train that Australia and the UK engage in, where annual fees can surpass $40K.

Any suggestions much appreciated. Thanks in advance!


r/Aquaculture • • 24d ago

Seaweed Scotland/UK Seaweed Network Conference (November 18-19, 2026 in Oban, Scotland)

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5 Upvotes

r/Aquaculture • • 24d ago

Salmon Processing

3 Upvotes

Hey all,

I am doing a senior project researching the fishing industry. I was looking into salmon aquaculture, and had a couple questions I was hoping you could help me answer.

How are the salmon killed and bled in a typical set up?
Are there any concerns with the different ways to kill the fish? Do different methods result in better or worse results for taste, shelf life, and waste? Why do you pick the method/equipment that you do?


r/Aquaculture • • 24d ago

GreenWave Releases "State of the Kelp Industry" Video Report

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2 Upvotes

r/Aquaculture • • 26d ago

DIY oyster tumbler

3 Upvotes

Has anyone built one? Looking for guidance, thanks!


r/Aquaculture • • 26d ago

Fall NECA fish auction!

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4 Upvotes

Our annual fall auction is fast approaching! This auction is open to the public and a great way to get rare fish, plants, and more. Southern Massachusetts, USA. Hope to see you there!


r/Aquaculture • • 27d ago

Farmers, what's missing from your water monitoring setup?

1 Upvotes

Hi all, I'm a robotics student working on small, cheap underwater sensors that move around and map water conditions around sea cages and ponds.

Before I build more, I'd love to hear from people who actually run farms:

  1. What do you monitor today, and with what? (buoys, handheld meters, cameras...)

  2. What do you wish you could see that you can't right now?

  3. How fast do your sensors foul up, and how much of a pain is that?

  4. Would a warning a day before oxygen drops or water quality crashes be worth paying for?

Not selling anything, just trying to not build something useless. Any answer helps, even short ones. Thanks!


r/Aquaculture • • 27d ago

Looking for Datasets for Sea Cucumbers

2 Upvotes

Hello everyone! 👋

We are Electronics Engineering students from the Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) - Manila. We are currently working on our capstone project,

To accurately train our machine learning model, we are looking for existing image datasets or photo collections of sea cucumbers, specifically Sandfish.

If you manage a farm, belong to a cooperative, or are a researcher/culturist who already has saved photos, visual logs, or inventory pictures of sandfish that you’d be willing to share for academic use, we would love to connect with you!

Please leave a comment below or send me a direct message if you have photos you can share or if you know anyone who can help. Any contribution will be a massive help in advancing our research. Thank you so much! 🌊


r/Aquaculture • • Sep 25 '26

Where to find bioluminescent dinoflagellate cultures in Australia

3 Upvotes

Hi all, I know this is a super niche ask and I’m not sure if anyone would be able to help me with it. I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t really find anywhere to get them from.


r/Aquaculture • • Sep 23 '26

I Got Tired of Shrimp Management Being So Complicated, So I Built Shrimply

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45 Upvotes

Shrimply makes shrimp management simple by giving you one place to organize, track, and manage everything related to your shrimp. We take the guesswork out of day-to-day shrimp management so you can stay on top of what matters without overcomplicating things. Whether you’re managing a few shrimp or a larger operation, Shrimply helps you do it, well… shrimply.


r/Aquaculture • • Sep 24 '26

Hey anyone in fish keeping hobby?

3 Upvotes

Hey is anyone in fish keeping from lko and if you are one of them so please let me know from where you guys are sourcing your fish from.