A Prototype Net Cleaning System for Open-Ocean Aquaculture Cages

Open-Ocean Aquaculture businesses are proving commercially successful. There are several technical refinements the industry must undergo in order to maximize productivity and future expansion. We address a problem common to all off-shore open-ocean aquaculture cage systems, marine biofouling of the net mesh used for the enclosure. Significant amounts of biofoulding leads to increased pollutant levels within the cage, increased population stress due to that pollution, and increased probability of disease for the stock population. We propose to build and evaluate a novel, environmentally friendly, remotely operated, net cleaning system capable of cleaning present day off-shore aquaculture cages. This innovation will significantly lower offshore labor overhead costs for off-shore aquaculture cages.