Tropic Ribarstvo’s invention, a peracetic acid dispenser for trout farms, claimed the first prize — €2,000 worth of Alltech Coppens feed and the support of the Alltech Innovation team to help the company develop the idea and communicate it to the wider aquaculture industry.
In the intensive production of rainbow trout, there are conditions, such as gills diseases, that need to be treated with peracetic acid or a similar medical supplement. Tropic Ribarstvo, run by Zoran Tepic, has developed a device for safely applying treatments to fish tanks and raceways, said the organizers.
Traditionally, the flow in the fish tank is stopped and the peracetic acid is manually applied to the water — this can cause additional stress on the fish and uneven distribution of the therapeutic. The innovative peracetic acid dispenser offers farmers a measured and safe way to effectively make such applications while also minimizing stress on the fish, said Alltech Coppens.
Tepic’s team showcased the invention at the Alltech Coppens conference, Aqua InDepth, taking place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands on October 1–2.
With this new inventor project, the Netherlands based feed manufacturer had been looking to discover and support ideas developed by fish farmers for fish farmers; it essentially sought innovative solutions in relation to all aspects of aquaculture, from hatchery to feeding to growing to catching to processing or marketing.
Pat Charlton, CEO of Alltech Coppens, told this publication before that the program was open to any type of entrant.
“However, we do want to focus on the smaller, more practical ideas, and not the large multi-million-dollar innovations. Also, we want this to be a real innovation and not just simply an idea.”
In terms of the kind of support the winner will get from the Alltech, he said: “We have a wealth of global experience to help develop, promote and market the invention. We have run our own Pearse Lyons Accelerator program for the last three years and have developed a team of both internal experts and external consultants who could help with this project based on the requirement needed.”
Runners-up
Another two inventions, as part of the inaugural inventor program, were highly commended.
One related to the feeding of green lipped mussel powder to improve the health and yield of shrimp, and other aquaculture species, and the other runner-up in the scheme was Topsy Baits from the Netherlands with an invention focused on a low temperature method of drying polychaetes. The idea is that the dried polychaetes can be use in pre-maturation in shrimp hatcheries as a replacement for the live form.
