The increasing adoption of precision, sensor-driven technologies in salmon aquaculture is driving improvements in operational efficiency, fish welfare and environmental sustainability. Aeration is a routine requirement in Atlantic salmon net-pen aquaculture used to maintain adequate dissolved oxygen during periods of compromised water quality, disease events and medicinal or mechanical treatments. Currently, aeration is typically provided by centralised diesel or electric compressors whose operating costs restrict their use to critical periods leaving fish to cope with potentially suboptimal oxygen conditions at other times.
This study evaluated a compact, portable, single-phase electric aeration unit with on-demand, sensor-triggered control as a precision alternative to standard centralised electric aeration in an 8-month commercial-scale trial at an Atlantic salmon net-pen site. Six pens were randomly assigned to one of two treatments (n = 3 per treatment): on-demand electric aeration triggered automatically by a low-oxygen or high-chlorophyll threshold, or centralised electric compressor aeration applied as per standard husbandry practice. Water quality was monitored continuously across pen volume and depth using dissolved oxygen, temperature, chlorophyll and salinity data loggers. Fish health and welfare were assessed via weekly health checks, including gill scoring for amoebic gill disease (AGD) and proliferative gill disease (PGD), sea lice counts and physical condition scoring. Production performance metrics, including growth, feed conversion ratio, feed consumption and mortality, were collected from farm records throughout the trial. Chronic stress was assessed by measuring scale cortisol at four time points using HPLC-MS/MS (April, July and November) with 15 salmon sampled per time point across all experimental pens.
A full life-cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to establish and compare the environmental credentials of the two aeration systems, conforming to ISO 14044 methodology and considering EU Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) where applicable. Greenhouse gas emissions were separated into Scope 1, 2 and 3 with full contribution analysis to identify efficiency improvement targets for each system. Standard PEF impact categories were assessed, including Global Warming Potential, Acidification Potential and Eutrophication Potential, alongside aquaculture-specific indicators such as Fish In Fish Out ratio and welfare metrics including mortality per tonne of fish produced.
Results will be presented comparing water quality profiles, fish health and welfare indicators, production performance and full life-cycle environmental impacts between on-demand precision electric aeration and standard centralised electric aeration across a full production cycle. This study provides the first rigorous commercial-scale evaluation of precision, sensor-triggered aeration as a smart aquaculture technology and assesses its potential to improve fish outcomes, operational efficiency and environmental sustainability within the broader transition to integrated, data-driven salmon production systems.