Impact of CO2 and salinity in aquaculture on physiology, growth and health of coho salmon

As of 2017 salmonid aquaculture was worth $22 billion USD per year with the UK contributing $1.4 billion USD and Canada responsible for $988 million USD. However, despite UN directives stating a need to double production by 2050, growth is hampered by negative public perception. Typically salmonid aquaculture combines land-based freshwater hatcheries with sea-pen rearing systems. While requiring lower maintenance costs the use of sea-pens increases risk of disease in farmed fish and has been linked with parasite overspill into wild populations of salmon causing serious declines in native populations. As such there is a demand to reduce the duration of the marine grow out phase, or transition entirely to land based farm systems (referred to as recirculating aquaculture systems – RAS) which largely avoid many of these problems. However, thus far development of RAS farms has been limited due to reduced growth observed in RAS compared to pens, and the scale of RAS required to maintain fish up to harvest size. Reduced growth and adverse health outcomes have largely been attributed to various issues relating to water chemistry (e.g. CO2, salinity, pH etc.).

Faculty Supervisor:

Jeffrey Richards

Student:

Partner:

University of Exeter

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: