Norwegian-headquartered equipment manufacturer GreenFox Marine is looking forward to bringing the first high-speed machine developed for automatically sorting fish according to sex to the IceFish 2024 exhibition in September, at stand SBZ8, Its new solution utilises sophisticated ultrasound and AI technologies.
According to GreenFox, sex-sorted fish provide significant benefits to fish farming companies, including improved fish health in the production systems.
In Chile, fish farmers have been manually sex-sorting fish for many years, albeit by using handheld ultrasound systems. Indeed, more than 50% of the South American country’s Atlantic salmon are today sex-sorted, with some of the largest companies making this standard practice for 100% of their production.
Ongoing full-scale projects with sex-sorting salmon in Norway have already highlighted significant differences in growth for male and female fish. For example, male fish are 17% heavier compared to the average in the reference group of mixed sex after nine months in the sea. It’s expected that this difference in growth will increase further the longer the fish spend in grow-out cages.
GreenFox’s sex-sorting machines have been thoroughly tested, and have been in commercial operations for two years. The company confirmed they have been running without any issues, and are providing an accuracy of 96-99%, sorting fish from 30-130 grams.
According to Greenfox, the main benefits for sex-sorting are:
- Significant increased growth on both sexes
- Shorter time in the sea – leading to better utilisation of licences
- Reduced issues with sea lice
- Improved fish health and reduced mortality
- Adapted production for both sexes, including no light treatment for female fish
GreenFox Marine has also been using the same technology to identify abnormities in other organs of the fish.
“We are able to detect nephrocalcinosis at an early stage on fish from 30 grams. Detection of this will make the fish farmer able to take action to avoid further development of this condition,” it told IceFish. “Early maturation is also something we can detect during the sex-sorting process. We are also able to see deformities on the heart of the fish in the same sizes.”
In the future, GreenFox expects to be able to provide the fish with a health index based on these conditions.
“Sex-sorting is the future,” it said.
[GreenFox.jpg] Caption: GreenFox Marine’s sex-sorting solution is providing an accuracy of 96-99%, sorting fish from 30-130 gramsHigh-speed sex-sorting at IceFish 2024
