📢 Turbot alert! We are excited to announce that China-based HatcheryMatch project partners at the Fishery Machinery and Instrument Research Institute are starting off 2023 with a major milestone in the project. After many months of researchers in both Malta and China spent designing and installing an automated recirculating hatchery system and each of its innovation technologies, researchers at FMIRI have recently stocked their tanks and started performance trials with juvenile turbot. These ongoing experiments are investigating the effects of different stocking densities on water quality parameters as well as fish body length and body weight. The results of these trials will allow the researchers to assess the capacity and baseline parameters of the system which will later be used for experiments that incorporate each of the HatcheryMatch innovations working together.

The HatcheryMatch project aims to improve automation in marine recirculating hatchery systems as a working solution to common issues during the rearing of early life stages such as reduced controllability, high labor dependence, and compromised water quality. To achieve this, researchers in Malta and China are collaborating on the development of four innovative technologies: an ultrasound and hydrocavitation disinfection device, a bottom cleaning device, an automatic live feed delivery system, and an embryonic image analyser.

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Project HatcheryMatch funded by the Malta Council for Science and Technology through the Sino-Malta Fund 2020 (Science and Technology Cooperation). An Automated Marine Fish Hatchery with Innovated Water Recirculation Technologies (HatcheryMatch, Grant No.  2020YFE0108700, also funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, China.