Air Drying Infrastructure

Forcing fouling to dry in air can kill much of the attached fouling organisms. After drying this enables easier cleaning.

Applicable to:

Shellfish
- Stock and infrastructure.

Finfish
- Infrastructure (nets, moorings etc).

Methodology

Shellfish
- Trays can be rotated between those with stock and those on land drying.

Finfish
- Double net system - half of the net is lifted out of the water to air dry while the remaining half is left in.

Key Factors Positive

- User friendly.
- Costs are saved on cleaning techniques as the time needed to remove fouling is reduced.
- Reduces stress to fish associated with net changes or shellfish stock while cleaning trays in situ.

Key Factors Negative

Shellfish
- Extra cost associated with increased infrastructure.

Finfish
- Need an experienced team to change over nets.
- Nets can be damaged.
- Stress can be caused by the decrease in water volume and can have a negative impact on fish, so needs to be monitored carefully.

Cost Benefit

Shellfish
- The extra cost of infrastructure can be balanced out by reduced labour costs, resulting from faster cleaning of dried fouling.

Finfish
- As a strategy combined with disk washing and washing machines, the use of air-drying nets reduced the cost per sq. metre of net by ca. 50% per annum.

Conclusions/ Discussion

- The effectiveness against fouling is good, although in the summer the technique must be repeated every 4 to 8 weeks to maintain low levels of fouling.