Facilities

CtrlAQUA has several state-of-the-art research facilities well suited to the research tasks, and the facilities are being heavily used.

Nofima Centre for Recirculation in Aquaculture (NCRA)

A European-unique facility for small- to semi-commercial scale experiments (flow-through and RAS). The facility is part of the AquaExcel transnational researcher access system.

This 2300m2 facility has six sections; 57 tanks with volumes of 0.5, 3, or 100m3, four independent RAS, but also full capacity for flow-through, sampling lab, control and meeting rooms. Water is either temperature-controlled FW or SW or mixes. NCRA is run by PLC controllers with remote access, enabling real-time control and monitoring.

Take a look at the RAS facilities of Nofima:

The Industrial Laboratory

At NORCE/UiB, the Centre is using the Industrial Laboratory in Bergen (ILAB, ISO-approved 9001), a land-based facility with 8 separate laboratories, with more than 50 1-m tanks (500 l).

All tanks are equipped with mixing tanks and have access to temperature (4-30°C) and salinity control (0-34 ppt). A quarantine facility is located adjacent to this facility and is certified to conduct both bacterial and viral challenge experiments.

The Freshwater Institute

The Freshwater Institute (Shepherdstown, WV, USA) has a main building with offices, wet-lab, fish health dry lab, and water chemistry laboratories.

The facilities include 41 tanks on flow through water (0.5-1.5 m3), 7 tanks in five partial water reuse systems (5-11 m3 each), 6 tanks in six replicated RAS (5 m3 each) plus one large tank in RAS (150 m3).

Mowi R&D location

CtrlAQUA is using the Mowi R&D location at Molnes, with an Aquafarm Equipment Neptun S-CCS. This site enable us to conduct unique studies under controlled large-scale conditions.

The Neptun platform (size: 21 000 m3) contains four submerged pumps (total 600 m3/min), taking water from 25 m depth. Oxygen level is continuously monitored and added to the inlet water upstream of each pump. Waste food and feces are collected from the bottom center drain and pumped into a separator unit.

Large-scale RAS site Grieg SeaFood

CtrlAQUA has access to the large-scale RAS site Grieg SeaFood, Adamselv.

This site has four separate BR/SW RAS for post-smolts, each with 4 tanks with a total volume of 10 000 m3, and a feeding capacity of 4 000 tons/year. Two RAS have tanks of 2×400 m3 + 2×700 m3, the other two 4×700 m3. Each RAS can be run at individual temperatures and salinities, and include micro-screens and moving bed bioreactors.

Lerøy SeaFood Group CCS testing site

Finally, the Centre is using the Lerøy SeaFood Group CCS testing site at Samnanger, and a nearby cage site, for comparison of growth, welfare, and health with CCS.