Linear motors reduce the use of antibiotics in fish farms

From a global perspective, fish is already the most important source of protein for human consumption. According to expert opinions, demand could as much as double within one or two decades. Without aquaculture, this hunger for fish cannot be sated. The negative side effects of industrial aquaculture, such as high levels of pollution from medications, however, have scared off consumers in Europe in particular, causing sales to collapse a few years ago.
Aquaculture fish are bred for maximum production and for economic reasons they have significantly less living space than their cousins in the wild. This makes them especially susceptible to illness and parasites.

The damage caused by an infestation can quickly threaten the livelihood of the farmer. The epidemic of infectious salmon anemia (ISA) that broke out in 2007, for example, caused salmon production in Chile to plummet from 400,000 t to just 250,000 t within two years. There are many other diseases besides ISA, such as furunculosis, that threaten fish stocks.Many breeders therefore use large amounts of prophylactic medications, especially antibiotics. Growing criticism of these side effects has led to the use of medications being restricted in Europe.
Vaccinating 20,000 fish per hour automatically

Norway in particular has long endeavored to solve to problems of aquaculture. The country, where fish is the third most important export, has recently succeeded in nearly completely eliminating antibiotics. At their peak in 1987, Norwegian fisheries alone used about 50 tonnes of antibiotics per year—more than were prescribed for the entire population of Norway in the same time period. Usage in fish farms is now less than 100 kilograms per year. Ninety-eight percent of all salmon farmed in the Scandinavian country have absolutely no exposure to antibiotics. This was made possible by vaccinating the fish.
Typically several vaccines are injection at once. Fish are classified as cold-blooded animals, which means that their metabolic rate depends on the temperature, so the injection also contains an agent that heats up the immune system.

This procedure is difficult, however, because up to now each fish has had to be manually injected with the vaccine using a syringe. Considering the number of fish raised annually—1.4 million tons of salmon in aquaculture worldwide in 2010—this procedure has reached its limits. The machine builder Maskon has therefore turned to automation of the vaccination process. A system developed by the company, which requires just a single operator, can automatically anesthetize, sort, singulate, and vaccinate up to 20,000 fish per hour, depending on the model. This would previously have required four to six experienced “fish injectors”. The machine can not only vaccinate substantially more fish, but also ensures a significantly higher level of quality of vaccination than humans can provide.