The waste remover in aquaculture ponds

Abstract

Over the past decade, Vietnam's shrimp industry has made great progress and brings Vietnam into the rank of the world's largest shrimp exporters. The development trend of the shrimp industry in the world as well as in Vietnam today is in the direction of intensive and super-intensive farming, technology innovation to enhance productivity and quality. However, the shrimp farming industry in Vietnam is facing many difficulties; one of them is the problem of environmental pollution, raising the negative impact on the economic effectiveness of farming. Causes are mainly due to excess food and untreated shrimp waste accumulated on the pond bottom surface and disintegrated to reduce dissolved oxygen concentration, release toxic gases such as NH₃, H₂S and create a favorable environment for harmful microorganisms to develop. Therefore, it is necessary to have a countermeasure to thoroughly remove waste from the farming environment. This paper introduces a general design of a waste remover, which is needed for shrimp farming ponds to remove waste and solve the mentioned problem. This equipment moves on the bottom surface of the pond and can be autonomous or manually remote controlled. During the working process, the equipment brushes waste on the bottom surface of the pond and suck it into the filter bag. The waste remover includes such following main units: traveling unit, brushing unit, sucking unit, frame unit, transmission, and control systems. The equipment uses the principle of axial pumping, sucks waste along the water stream by reducing the pressure inside the equipment, and transfers waste into filter bags. This general design basically meets the requirement of waste removal and can be fundamental for designing the detailed units, manufacturing, and experiment implementation of equipment in the future.