LED lighting for sustainable marine-based fish farming

“According to the UN, nearly 90% of the world’s marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. There is need for sensible policies to conserve fish stocks combined with responsible fish farming,” said Bill Bien, leader of Signify’s Agricultural Lighting business. “With our LED lighting we help customers to improve the efficiency of its sea-based salmon farms, to improve feed conversion rates, reduce food costs and lower risk of infection.”

Signify’s underwater lights, up to 100,000 lumen, mimic the summer sun. Like in the summer months, they convert feed better aiding growth (better Feed Conversion Rate), so less fish food is needed, resulting in lower cost and cleaner water. The lights are submerged five meters deep, attracting the fish and dramatically reducing infections by sea lice who live closer to the surface.

Signify first installed its Philips aquaculture LED lighting in Australis’ Moraleda fish farm in Aysén, Chile. After achieving excellent results with them in terms of growth and Feed Conversion Rates (FCR), Australis asked Signify to upgrade the whole site. In addition, the site realised one of the best production results in Australis records and was named the best Skretting 2019 Fish farm in the XI region.

Australis Seafoods is committed to excellence, ensuring the quality and freshness of its salmon according to sustainability standards. The company has raised concerns about environmental conditions and specialises in the sale of salmon and trout, with emphasis on sustainable production using species from Chilean Patagonia. Australis is aware that maintaining a sustainable industry in the long term is everyone’s duty and is committed to this fundamental principle.

For several years, Signify has served in the Chilean salmon industry, providing its innovative photoperiod systems – that help to control the duration of light - to optimise salmon production. Atlantic salmon are very sensitive to changes in photoperiod - the period of daily illumination - in fresh and seawater, and particularly during the parr-smolt transformation (a series of physiological changes where juvenile fish adapt from living in fresh water to living in seawater).

Australis installed Signify’s photoperiod systems in most of its fish farms located in the XI Region of Aysén and is going to adapt the systems in the XII Region of Magallanes.

“Signify is an innovative player in the Chilean aquaculture industry in relation to lighting. Therefore, and after a comparative evaluation of the different solutions and alternatives, we selected them to be our main photoperiod provider for our fish production,” said Lucas Correa, Deputy Manager of Maintenance and Structures at Australis Seafoods.

Bien added: “Australis has always been open to try new things; technology, innovation, improvements. Especially in aspects related to production, we believe that they’re one step ahead, always showing interest, being analytical and making decisions based on real studies and tests. We believe that our mutual commitment to sustainable fish farming is very important to achieving a good collaboration. With Australis we’ve been developing as a single team, receiving excellent logistical and operational support in all areas and stages of the productive cycle.”