Aqua-feed for cultivating cleaner fish to eradicate sea lice from salmon

Salmon farms across the world are being devastated by infestations of sea lice that target salmon. There is an undeniable need for greater volumes of healthy cleaner-fish to control (eat) sea-lice off farmed salmon. However, the current approach is to extract cleaner-fish from the 'wild' and breeding them in captivity on feeds that are nutritionally deficient. As a result, mortality rates are significant, and sea lice numbers continue to proliferate within salmon farms.

Salmon production in Norway and Scotland combined has been falling by about 10% a year and costing the salmon industry hundreds of millions a year in lost revenues.

Anti-parasitic medicines to control sea-lice are adopted but, treatments are environmentally toxic and can impact upon water quality, affect local wildlife and reduce the quality of the fish for consumers. Using cleaner-fish (larvae extracted from the wild) is an established alternative, but mortality rate is extremely high due to nutritional deficiencies and inefficient feeding mechanisms; 'wild' stocks are dwindling as a result.

World Feeds presents herein a new approach on breeding cleaner-fish sustainably in captivity within hatcheries. The approach will significantly reduce the need to harvest cleaner-fish from the 'wild' (allowing stocks to recover) and will afford salmon farmers an unbroken supply of disease-free cleaner-fish.