Program overview

Dr. Nick Phelps

Best management practices for the health of your farmed fish: a new tool

Laurel Sacco1, Ethan Haefner1, Thomas Loch2, Myron Kebus2, Matthew Smith3, Nicholas Phelps1

1University of Minnesota, 2Michigan State University, 3Xylem-YSI

Fish diseases in aquaculture are responsible for significant economic losses. To prevent or mitigate costly and harmful disease outbreaks in aquaculture facilities, it is essential to follow effective and practical methods, or “best management practices" (BMPs), that support the health of cultured fish. Despite the recognized importance of BMPs in aquaculture, farmers often lack clear guidance for appropriate practices from trustworthy sources. In the North Central Region of the United States, fish farmers have indicated that finding practical and useable BMPs is one of the greatest barriers to their implementation on farms. To address this need and build fish health capacity for farmers, we are creating an online, interactive tool that will 1) help farmers identify fish health concerns on their farms and 2) provide them with comprehensive BMPs targeted at addressing these concerns. Tool users will build a profile of their farm’s fish health needs. First, they will tailor the tool to their farm environment (e.g., aquaculture system) and then move through a series of guiding questions regarding their farm’s fish health practices. The tool will use this profile to generate relevant resources describing the importance and implementation of BMPs that address fish health needs specific to their farm.