Kerlink, a specialist in solutions dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), and its Japanese distributor, GISupply, unveiled a customized aquaculture-monitoring system that supports sustainable seafood production and lowers farmers’ costs. Kerlink and GISupply’s smart-aquaculture solution targets the Japanese market as well as the global fish-farming industry with a LoRa-based sustainable aquaculture business model.

The smart-aquaculture system enables farmers to optimize operations and make data-driven decisions in real-time by automating water monitoring that formerly was done manually. Their new solution improves the effectiveness of fish breeding by enabling producers to continuously monitor water quality and temperature, which is critical because of global warming.

Another positive return-on-investment (ROI) feature enables the installation of multiple sensors that were not used in legacy systems, and which improve pattern recognition and forecasting for farm operations. Altogether, system sensors measure dissolved oxygen, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), salinity, pH, turbidity, brightness, ammonia and chlorophyll. Sensors are provided by Aqualabo, which designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of water analysis and testing devices and instruments, and Eureka, a global leader in the design and manufacture of multiparameter water quality probes.

Customers develop their own cloud software to support the system because the required data varies significantly depending on the species – fish, shellfish or invertebrate marine animals (echinoderm) – being raised in each farm.

“The Japanese and global smart-aquaculture markets embrace sustainable practices and expect new technologies, such as the IoT, to operate 24/7 regardless of what Mother Nature has to offer, even winter blizzards,” said Satoshi Kitaoka, president of GISupply. “The reliability of our system has been proven in both land-based and open-ocean aquaculture farms, providing farmers with continuous readings of their conditions – and more confidence that they can meet their production and financial goals.”