Development and performance evaluation of sludge remover for intensive aquaculture

Fisheries is an emerging sector in Bangladesh producing about 3.50 million tons of fish annually of which aquaculture accounts for 2.00 million tons. In intensive aquaculture, pond water gets polluted due to high stocking density and large amount of supplemental feeding results in huge accumulation of unused feed and faeces in the pond bottom. The accumulated bottom sludge depletes dissolved oxygen (DO) and releases harmful gases due to excessive use of chemicals and lack of water exchange facilities. These have negative impact on fish production and economic performance, through disease outbreak, mortality, poor feed conversion ratio (FCR), specific growth rate (SGR) and bad odor in fish muscles. This study was undertaken to develop a sludge remover for cleaning sludge from the intensive fish farming pond and to find the impact of sludge removal on water quality and growth of fish.