BREEZE - a revolutionary and environmentally friendly concept for fish health management

BREEZE is a revolutionary and environmentally friendly concept for fish health management, under development in response to the needs of salmon farming for new approaches and effective methods to improve the management of sea lice.

The salmon farming sector is losing approximately US$1 billion each year due to ectoparasites such as sea lice. Their resistance to existing treatments, increased industry and consumer awareness of fish welfare, and a growing demand for treatment methods with minimum environmental impact are the principal drivers behind the project.

To further support the successful scaling of sustainably managed fish farms, Aqua Pharma Group has formed a consortium with Pulcea Ltd, Scottish aquaculture research and development company, and the prestigious Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The diverse and unique skillset will enable the development of an innovative new concept, code-named “BREEZE”.

BREEZE rises to the challenge of increasing sea lice tolerance to bath treatments, while improving fish welfare and experience, validating, and minimising environmental impact, and helping farms avoid the financial losses they suffer as a result of sea lice.

BREEZE takes existing hydrogen peroxide (oxygenated water) bath treatments and introduces an acoustic technology to counteract sea lice tolerance to treatments. BREEZE will ensure that little or no residue remains following release, making it suitable for use even in environmentally sensitive regions.

The acoustic technology has proven to be especially effective against gravid female sea lice and their eggs and has been shown to be safe with no pathological or behavioural side effects for the fish.

Further information on the project can be found in this leaflet and this video.

About the Consortium

The BREEZE project has been structured to promote the Knowledge Triangle Integration (KTI) concept and the Consortium is a partnership from all three KTI fields: Aqua Pharma Group on the commercial side, Pulcea from the research field and the NTNU from academia.

The project is also supported by the University of Stirling, Scotland, providing scientific verification of the efficacy of the Pulcea technology. Other parties from the different sides of the knowledge triangle (our external partners SAIC, Solvay, and Novozymes) as well as salmon farming companies will also be involved as the project progresses.