Abstract:
An efficient and environmentally friendly recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) has been emerged as the a prominent trend in the aquaculture industry. RAS can also be expected to restore the ever ever-decreasing in the land and water resources, particularly with the escalating environmental pressures. However, the predatory fish can often exhibit the surface surface-feeding frenzy behavior during feeding in RAS. In this study, a wave feedback feeding equipment was introduced for the recirculating aquaculture. This key input parameter was selected as the amplitude of surface waves that generated by the fish fish-feeding activity. The rotation speed of the feeding machine was set as the output parameter. Thereby there were the adaptive changes in the feeding rate, according to the intensity of fish feeding. A comparative experiment was conducted on the RAS setting to validate the practicality and effectiveness of this wave feedback feeding equipment. The test species were taken as the intensively cultured Pearl Dragon-and-Tiger Grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus ♀×Epinephelus tukula♂). The fish was reared under two feeding regimes: traditional timed feeding and wave feedback feeding. The experimental results demonstrated that the peak feeding intensity model of the wave feedback feeding equipment outperformed the traditional feeding modes, in terms of the decision-making performance. Specifically, the Nash efficiency was improved from 0.888 to 0.940, indicating the reliable and robust control performance. Furthermore, the wave feedback feeding equipment was significantly reduced the feed conversion ratio (FCR), compared with the traditional feeding modes, with a decrease of 11.11%. Additionally, the coefficient of variation (CV) in the body mass during growth was 15.36% lower than that in the timed feeding group. There was the a decrease in the differentiation and variability among fish during growth. The economic benefits of the wave feedback feeding mode were approximately 24.6% higher than those of traditional feeding. The developed feeding system also exhibited the excellent performance. The finding can also provide a strong reference and technical support for the aquaculture mode and intelligent feeding.