Aqua-feed for cultivating cleaner fish to eradicate sea lice from salmon

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Salmon farms across the world are being devastated by infestations of sea lice that target salmon. There is an undeniable need for greater volumes of healthy cleaner-fish to control (eat) sea-lice off farmed salmon. However, the current approach is to extract cleaner-fish from the 'wild' and breeding them in captivity on feeds that are nutritionally deficient. As a result, mortality rates are significant, and sea lice numbers continue to proliferate within salmon farms.Salmon production in Norway and Scotland combined has been falling by about 10% a year and costing the salmon industry hundreds of millions a year in lost revenues.Anti-parasitic medicines to control sea-lice are adopted but, treatments are environmentally toxic and can impact upon water quality, affect local wildlife and reduce the quality of the fish for consumers. Using cleaner-fish (larvae extracted from the wild) is an established alternative, but mortality rate is extremely high due to nutritional deficiencies and inefficient feeding mechanisms; 'wild' stocks are dwindling as a result.World Feeds presents herein a new approach on breeding cleaner-fish sustainably in captivity within hatcheries. The approach will significantly reduce the need to harvest cleaner-fish from the 'wild' (allowing stocks to recover) and will afford salmon farmers an unbroken supply of disease-free cleaner-fish.