DISSOLVED OXYGEN CONSUMPTION AND INTRA-TANK DISTRIBUTION OF TROUT BIOMASS

Precision fish farming (PFF) aims at improving accuracy, precision, and repeatability in farming operations by delivering reliable decision-making support tools to farmers (Føre et al. 2018). It is centred on 1) large quantitative datasets provided from sensors which feed 2) data driven models and algorithms and finally supply 3) decision-supporting tools and smart management systems based on the Internet of Things (Banhazi et al., 2012). These datasets concern both environmental variables and fish bio-responses. Here we focus on the dissolved oxygen (DO) flux along an 8m-wide 200m-long raceway tank for rainbow trout cultivation located in Trentino Alto-Adige, Italy. Along the production cycle, liquid oxygen is supplied at constant rates into the raceway. A previous assessment (Royer el al. 2021) has demonstrated that a DO transport model can be used to implement a cost-effective automatic control of oxygen supply in this fish farm, based on short-term predictions of oxygen demand. As a step further, here we address the intra-tank spatial variability of DO, associated with a liquid oxygen supply, fish metabolism, and atmospheric exchange. By analysing the streamwise variation of DO consumption, the biomass distribution along the raceway can be estimated, allowing the assessment of preferential movements of fishes along the tank. Furthermore, assessing the DO values at different downstream positions at the raceway is suitable for improving fish growth and respiration models.