Background

In an age where we are taught animal cruelty is wrong but brought upon omnivorous diet it slowly becomes apparent that the two do not go hand in hand. Our hunger for shrimps has grown drastically in recent decades and global demand for shrimps has exploded.

Action
In most shrimp farming practices, shrimps are treated like inanimate objects. Filthy living environments for farmed shrimps propogate the use of vaccines and pesticides to prevent the spread of disease.

Reaction
To inspect these malicious activities experts conducted tests on farmed shrimps which resulted in finding heavy traces of antibiotic resistant bacteria. These bacteria termed as “Superbug” are extremely harmful for human consumption and can cause E-coli infections.

Scenario

Due to Rising demand for shrimps, farmers increase the stocking density, i.e 80-90 shrimps in one tank. This causes overcrowding, lower oxygen levels and a lot of shrimp waste. When oxygen and hygiene levels are lower than required, shrimps tend to get infected with numerous diseases and to make them sustain these diseases harmful antibiotics are used.
These antibiotics are capable of causing e-coli infections in humans and are also proven to cause other deadly bacterial infections.

Toxicity of water increases when the concentration of ammonia increases and Ph of water becomes more acidic

Unable to control light intensity falling on the ponds causes variation in water temperature leading to behavioural stress in shrimps.

Feed contents a lot of copper. When large amount of feed is felt uneaten it makes the water highly toxic. this leads to diseases in shrimps.

Improper disposal of untreated water in lakes and oceans leads to distruction of natural life.

Shrimp eat to fulfill their nutritional and energy needs, and when the shrimps feed they does not have enough energy or nutrients, their feeding activity increase.

To control diseases a high amount of antibiotic are used.

Water management

Feed Management

Problems

Opportunities

Through our research we understood that shrimps live healthier near sea beds as the temperature is warm and comfortable for them.This helped us to further discover the life cycle of shrimps in nature.

Naturally, shrimp-algae and bacteria depend on one another for their existence.

shrimps eat algae, they break it down into glucose which is used with the oxygen in the water for cellular respiration to produce energy. Carbon dioxide is released in this process and then used by the algae in photosynthesis.

The bacteria eats waste from the shrimp and algae as food to be broken down into energy through cellular respiration and releases carbon dioxide into the water. It also releases nutrients such as nitrogen into water as they decompose waste products. The nutrients are taken in by the algae which in turn is eaten by the shrimp

The bacteria present in water decomposes the waste produced by shrimps and turns it into nutrients such as nitrogen, which benefits the algae.

Concept

This project is an attempt to create a healthy living environment for nauplii shrimps and prevent them from harmful farming practices. It is an inspiration derived from a naturally occurring cycle in sea: Shrimp, algae and bacteria are codependent for their existence. Shrimps eat algae, beneficial bacteria decompose the waste produced by shrimps and then help to promote the growth of algae.

Working

Maia replaces the traditional feed by promoting healthy algal and bacteria growth in water. For the algae to grow in tank, specific amount of light is required in different stages of shrimp growth.

The clamp-shell lighting replaces the sun in our system. The direction of each individual clamp-shells move from east to west. This promotes the continuous growth cycle of algae-shrimp-bacteria. Furthermore we used Hydroponics to regulate oxygen supply within the tank. When the illuminating shell switches off the shrimps move upwards for food (shrimps are more comfortable in darker environments), this process is called diel-vertical migration.

9:00 am

12:00 pm

3.00 pm

6:00 pm

Features

Clampshell lighting

This light helps farmers to set up light intensity as per the shrimp’s requirement, the light will sense and adjust its intensity according to the surrounding temperature.

Hydroponics

Hydroponics is a system that combines conventional aquaculture with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. This helps to regulate oxygen and replenish nutrients in water.

Roots of the plant absorb waste created by shrimps and convert them into nutrients, which benifits the plant. They also help shrimps by regulating oxygen supply and keep nitrogen levels low in the tank

25 - 27 celsius is the preffered water temprature for good growth of algae. This is achieved by controlling the intensity of light through sensors of clamp-shell lighting.