Aquaculture for all

New generation of Hydrolicer launched

Atlantic Salmon Non-medicinal treatments +3 more

The latest and largest Hydrolicer model, which can delouse 350 tonnes of salmon per hour, is on display at this year's Aqua Nor.

The system, which consists of eight Hydrolicer lines, has been bought by Haugaland Shipping and Aquatic Group.

Updates on the previous largest Hydrolicer include a new pump system and drum filter, which mean that it can cope with larger fish.

Process operator, Hans Martin Flasnes, explained some of the upgrades to The Fish Site yesterday.

"I've been in charge of operating our 6-line system and personally deloused 75,000 tonnes of salmon with it last year," he says.

"The new 8-line system not only increases the rate we can process the salmon," he continues, "but it also can be used to treat larger salmon - the previous version could treat fish up to 4.4 kilos, but the new one can treat fish averaging up to 6.5 kilos, which is popular at a time when the market for larger fish is so strong."

Hydrolicer process operator, Hans Martin Flasnes

© Rob Fletcher

The company has delivered 100 lines since 2015, according to Flasnes, while they currently have several in production and plenty of other requests to process.

The system is currently being used by most of the major salmon farming companies in Norway and Scotland, including Marine Harvest, Salmar, Scottish Sea Farms and Cooke Aquaculture, and Flasnes says that he has received excellent feedback from the farmers.

"Lice removal levels are now at 91-92%," he explains, "and the farmers report that fish return to feeding soon after treatment, with feeding levels at 80% within 24 hours and back to 100% with 48 hours."

"Starve times prior to treatment are 2 days in summer and 3 days in winter," he adds.

He also believes that the system is relatively gentle on the fish.

"We've had reports of 50-70% lower mortalities compared to other systems," he says.

The new 8-line system will be fully operational within three weeks.

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