Heat requirement in an indoor recirculating aquaculture system

Abstract

Due to the benefits of the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS), many fish farmers are choosing this system. Some farmers chose indoor RAS, where fish tanks are kept inside buildings or greenhouses. Heating the buildings and the makeup water requires a substantial amount of energy since optimum growth temperatures exceed the normal temperature of supply water. In this paper three different heating systems are analyzed: ground source heat pump, natural gas boiler and wood pellet boiler. The annual running cost of the water heating system in both cases (with heat recovery and no heat recovery) is the lowest for the ground source heat pump, followed by the wood pellet boiler and the natural gas boiler.

Keywords

• Biomass boiler
• Heat pump
• Heating
• Indoor recirculating aquaculture