Advances in biomass estimation of Nile tilapia aquaculture with acoustic methods

La Rosa L.L.C.; Puig-Pons V.; Morell-Monzó S.; Pérez-Arjona I.; Espinosa V. · Underwater Acoustic Conference and Exhibition Series (2025)

Resumen

Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is one of the most farmed fish species in the world with more than 5 million tons per year and is expected to continue to grow in the future. Traditional size monitoring and biomass estimation focuses on catch-and-release sampling methods. Acoustic methods have proven to be a potential tool for aquaculture monitoring. However, scientific echo sounders remain unfeasible in aquaculture due to their high cost. This work shows progress towards monitoring the biomass of Nile tilapia under production-like conditions from lateral target strength (TS) with a low-cost echo sounder. First, a biometric length-weight model was fitted from real specimens. Then, Biosonics DT-X echo-sounder with a single beam transducer operating at ~200 kHz was employed. The performance in estimating the average length through TSmax and TSmean was assessed for 8 size groups (from 14.1 to 43.7 cm) obtaining a R2> 0.9. These results are promising and provide an approach to the use of low-cost methods for biomass monitoring in aquaculture.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina