Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.2
2.7
Journals
Animals
Special Issues
Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of...
share announcement

Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Aquatic Animals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 4139

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Adolfo Jatobá

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Aquaculture Laboratory, Catarinense Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology, Campus Araquari, Araquari, Brazil
Interests: biofloc; integrated multi-trophic aquaculture; culture systems; probiotics; bioremediation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Bruno Silva

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Santa Catarina State Rural Extension and Agricultural Research Enterprise (EPAGRI), Itajaí, Brazil
Interests: feed additives; bioflocs; tilapia

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aquaculture, a cornerstone of sustainable food production, continues to evolve through technological and scientific innovations that enhance its efficiency and environmental sustainability. Notable advancements include the development of water-efficient systems, such as recirculating aquaculture systems (RASs) and biofloc technology (BFT), which enable fish farming in controlled environments with reduced environmental impact. Similarly, integrated approaches, such as integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) and aquaponic systems, have optimized nutrient utilization.

These integrated systems, often involving multiple species, require specialized knowledge in the reproduction, management, and nutrition of both established and emerging species. Frequently, the additional species in these systems perform secondary but essential roles, such as maintaining water quality and recycling nutrients, which are crucial for the ecological balance and sustainability of aquaculture practices.

Moreover, the integration of artificial intelligence, automation, and sensor technologies revolutionize management, while biotechnology fosters resilient, fast-growing species.

These innovations not only drive productivity but also bolster the industry's resilience to climate change and address global demands for sustainable practices. With a focus on novelties, we welcome contributions to the Special Issue titled “Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species”.

Dr. Adolfo Jatobá
Dr. Bruno Silva
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • integrated multitrophic aquaculture
  • biofloc technology
  • aquaponics
  • aquaculture recirculation system
  • new species

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (6 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

22 pages, 1605 KiB  
Article
Effects of Culture Systems and Feed Types on Water Quality and Growth Performance of Japanese Eel (Anguilla japonica)
by Jimin Choi, Ju-ae Hwang, Hyeong Su Kim and Jeonghwan Park
Animals 2025, 15(16), 2420; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15162420 - 18 Aug 2025
Viewed by 113
Abstract
Utilizing paste feed within a recirculating aquaculture system for eel cultivation may lead to various challenges, such as water quality degradation and, hence, transitioning to floating pellet type feed becomes essential. In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of different feed [...] Read more.
Utilizing paste feed within a recirculating aquaculture system for eel cultivation may lead to various challenges, such as water quality degradation and, hence, transitioning to floating pellet type feed becomes essential. In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of different feed types (paste and floating extruded pellet) and rearing systems (recirculating aquaculture and flow through system) on water quality, growth, blood chemistry, body composition, and expression levels of digestive enzymes in Japanese eels (Anguilla japonica). Throughout the experiment, notable variations were observed in total ammonia nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen levels, with higher concentrations in the recirculating aquaculture system (1.00 ± 0.64 and 0.757 ± 0.464 mg/L, respectively) than paste groups (0.859 ± 0.651 and 0.485 ± 0.502 mg/L, respectively). Significant differences were observed in weight gain and specific growth rates, with the pellet group (154 ± 10% and 1.50 ± 0.06%/day, respectively) exhibiting higher values than the paste group (135 ± 13% and 1.37 ± 0.09%/day, respectively). Blood parameters showed significant differences depending on the culture system, with generally higher values observed in the flow-through system, while no significant differences were observed between feed types. Whole-body composition exhibited variations attributed to feed intake, with notable differences in crude protein and crude fat content among the experimental groups. The expression levels of digestive enzymes and nutrient transporters were higher when the eels were fed pellet-type feed and reared in recirculating aquaculture system. The study findings indicate that pellet feed enhances water quality management in RAS, leading to improved eel growth. Given its lower environmental stress, pellet feed is preferable to paste feed for optimizing eel production in RAS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 1805 KiB  
Article
Indoor Application of Coupled FLOCponics System with Caipira Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) Affects the Growth Performance and Water Characteristics of Far Eastern Catfish (Silurus asotus) and Tropical Eel (Anguilla bicolor)
by Jun Seong Park, Hae Seung Jeong, Jeong-ho Lee and Ju-ae Hwang
Animals 2025, 15(15), 2305; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15152305 - 6 Aug 2025
Viewed by 267
Abstract
In this study, we sought to improve the productivity of Far Eastern catfish (Silurus asotus) and tropical eel (Anguilla bicolor), which are high-value fish species in the Republic of Korea, as well as that of associated crops by applying [...] Read more.
In this study, we sought to improve the productivity of Far Eastern catfish (Silurus asotus) and tropical eel (Anguilla bicolor), which are high-value fish species in the Republic of Korea, as well as that of associated crops by applying biofloc technology (BFT)-based aquaponics systems. The following three systems were used: the flow-through system (FTS), BFT, and BFT aquaponics system (BAPs). Caipira lettuce (Lactuca sativa) was utilized and hydroponics (HP) was implemented to compare crop productivity. After 42 days of treatment, the BAPs and BFT systems improved fish productivity, with weight gain rates of 134.47 ± 1.80% in BAPs-cat, 130.38 ± 0.95% in BFT, and 114.21 ± 6.62% in FTS for S. asotus, and 70.61 ± 3.26% in BAPs-eel, 62.37 ± 7.04% in BFT, and 47.83 ± 1.09% in FTS for A. bicolor. During the experiment, the total ammonia nitrogen and NO2−-N concentrations were stable in all plots. In the case of NO3−-N, BFT showed an increasing tendency while both BAPs showed a decrease compared with that of the BFT. BAPs-cat (total weight: 224.1 ± 6.37 g) and HP (220.3 ± 7.17 g) resulted in similar growth. However, in BAPs-eel was 187.7 ± 3.46 g due to root degradation. Water content analysis showed that BAPs-cat and BAPs-eel contained sufficient K, Ca, P, and S, which are important for crop growth. Overall, the effect of BAPs on fish growth was higher than that of FTS. This study reveals that integrating BFT with aquaponics improves productivity for high-value fish and associated crops while maintaining stable water quality. This method offers sustainable, efficient production, reduces environmental impact, and provides insights for future research in sustainable aquaculture practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 1681 KiB  
Article
Cross-Modal Complementarity Learning for Fish Feeding Intensity Recognition via Audio–Visual Fusion
by Jian Li, Yanan Wei, Wenkai Ma and Tan Wang
Animals 2025, 15(15), 2245; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15152245 - 31 Jul 2025
Viewed by 498
Abstract
Accurate evaluation of fish feeding intensity is crucial for optimizing aquaculture efficiency and the healthy growth of fish. Previous methods mainly rely on single-modal approaches (e.g., audio or visual). However, the complex underwater environment makes single-modal monitoring methods face significant challenges: visual systems [...] Read more.
Accurate evaluation of fish feeding intensity is crucial for optimizing aquaculture efficiency and the healthy growth of fish. Previous methods mainly rely on single-modal approaches (e.g., audio or visual). However, the complex underwater environment makes single-modal monitoring methods face significant challenges: visual systems are severely affected by water turbidity, lighting conditions, and fish occlusion, while acoustic systems suffer from background noise. Although existing studies have attempted to combine acoustic and visual information, most adopt simple feature-level fusion strategies, which fail to fully explore the complementary advantages of the two modalities under different environmental conditions and lack dynamic evaluation mechanisms for modal reliability. To address these problems, we propose the Adaptive Cross-modal Attention Fusion Network (ACAF-Net), a cross-modal complementarity learning framework with a two-stage attention fusion mechanism: (1) a cross-modal enhancement stage that enriches individual representations through Low-rank Bilinear Pooling and learnable fusion weights; (2) an adaptive attention fusion stage that dynamically weights acoustic and visual features based on complementarity and environmental reliability. Our framework incorporates dimension alignment strategies and attention mechanisms to capture temporal–spatial complementarity between acoustic feeding signals and visual behavioral patterns. Extensive experiments demonstrate superior performance compared to single-modal and conventional fusion approaches, with 6.4% accuracy improvement. The results validate the effectiveness of exploiting cross-modal complementarity for underwater behavioral analysis and establish a foundation for intelligent aquaculture monitoring systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 4752 KiB  
Article
Dynamics of Bacterial Communities and Their Relationship with Nutrients in a Full-Scale Shrimp Recirculating Aquaculture System in Brackish Water
by Arslan Emmanuel, Yingzhen Wei, Muhammad Naeem Ramzan, Wen Yang and Zhongming Zheng
Animals 2025, 15(10), 1400; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15101400 - 12 May 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 658
Abstract
Microbial communities in RASs play a critical role in maintaining water quality and supporting shrimp growth, development, and health. However, their dynamics, particularly in commercial systems, remain poorly understood. This study aimed to improve the understanding of bacterial community dynamics during shrimp culture [...] Read more.
Microbial communities in RASs play a critical role in maintaining water quality and supporting shrimp growth, development, and health. However, their dynamics, particularly in commercial systems, remain poorly understood. This study aimed to improve the understanding of bacterial community dynamics during shrimp culture in RASs. High-throughput amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA, PERMANOVA, PCoA, and other statistical analyses were used to investigate the bacterial dynamics. The entire succession process was categorized into three distinct phases, the initial, middle, and final phases, during the shrimp rearing in RASs to elucidate the spatial–temporal dynamics of the bacterial communities. Alpha diversity indicates the evenness of the bacterial community increased in the initial phase, while richness peaked in the middle phase. Notable taxonomic and functional groups within the bacterial community contributed to significant variations in the relative abundance of community composition across these phases. The dominant bacterial phyla in both water and biofilm included Proteobacteria, Actinobacteriota, Bacteroidota, and Patescibacteria. The dominant orders in both environments were Corynebacteriales, Burkholderiales, Rhodobacterales, Flavobacteriales, Saccharimonadales, and Micrococcales. Key bacterial taxa such as Pseudomonas, Mycobacterium, and Hydrogenophaga were critical for microbial community assembly, nutrient cycling, biodegradation, and water quality monitoring. Nitrite, ammonium, and nitrate were positively correlated with Mycobacterium, Rheinheimera, Taeseokela, and Thermomonas, while negatively correlated with the Cloacibacterium community composition. These findings expand our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of bacterial community succession in RASs with intensive rearing of shrimp and suggest that stabilizing environmental variables could be a useful management tool for promoting and maintaining healthy aquaculture environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 1629 KiB  
Article
The Effect of the Use of a Settling Chamber in the Cultivation of Penaeus vannamei and Salicornia neei in Aquaponics with Bioflocs
by Isabela Pinheiro, Flávia Banderó Höffling, Felipe Boéchat Vieira and Walter Quadros Seiffert
Animals 2025, 15(9), 1294; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15091294 - 30 Apr 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 353
Abstract
This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the continuous use of the settling chamber for solids removal in the cultivation of the marine shrimp Penaeus vannamei and the halophyte Salicornia neei in an aquaponic system with bioflocs. Two treatments were tested: with [...] Read more.
This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the continuous use of the settling chamber for solids removal in the cultivation of the marine shrimp Penaeus vannamei and the halophyte Salicornia neei in an aquaponic system with bioflocs. Two treatments were tested: with settling and without settling. Each experimental unit consisted of an 800 L tank for shrimp rearing (stocking density of 375 shrimp m−3) and a hydroponic bench of 0.33 m2 for 28 seedlings (84 plants m−2). In the treatment without settling, water was continuously pumped to the hydroponic bench. In the treatment with settling, the water was first pumped to the chamber, and the overflow was then distributed across each irrigation channel, returning to the tank by gravity. To maintain the concentration of suspended solids in the shrimp culture, solids that accumulated in the settling chamber were pumped back into the tank every 30 min. During the 54-day trial, the reduction in suspended solids in the treatment with settling led to an increase in TAN and NO2 levels, while the concentration of NO3 remained stable. Although water quality parameters were more stable in the treatment without settling, no significant differences were observed between the treatments regarding plant and shrimp production indices. These results demonstrate the feasibility of cultivating P. vannamei and S. neei in a biofloc-based aquaponic system without the continuous use of a settling chamber during the pre-grow phase (until 10 g), offering a potential method for simplifying aquaponic system design. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 1107 KiB  
Article
Sustainability in Intensive Aquaculture—Profitability of Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) Production in Recirculating Aquaculture Systems Based on a Hungarian Case Study
by Laura Mihály-Karnai, Milán Fehér, Péter Bársony, István Szűcs, Tamás Mihály, Dániel Fróna and László Szőllősi
Animals 2025, 15(7), 1055; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15071055 - 5 Apr 2025
Viewed by 1770
Abstract
This study examines the sustainability and economic viability of intensive common carp (Cyprinus carpio) production in recirculating aquaculture systems (RASs) in Hungary. Using a deterministic model, the research identifies production costs, profitability, and the critical factors influencing economic efficiency. It also [...] Read more.
This study examines the sustainability and economic viability of intensive common carp (Cyprinus carpio) production in recirculating aquaculture systems (RASs) in Hungary. Using a deterministic model, the research identifies production costs, profitability, and the critical factors influencing economic efficiency. It also evaluates the impact of key variables, such as the feed purchase price, the market-sized common carp sales price, the specific gross yield, the electricity price, and electricity consumption, on economic performance by using a sensitivity analysis. Primary data were collected from an experimental trial conducted under controlled conditions in Hungary, dividing the production process into three phases: pre-rearing, post-rearing, and market-sized fish production. The unit production cost of market-sized common carp in 2024 was 5.47 EUR/kg, with energy (47.01%) and feed (24.18%) as the main cost drivers. While the sales price covered variable costs, it failed to offset fixed costs, resulting in a loss of 0.41 EUR/kg. The results reveal that while RAS technology offers high productivity and efficient resource utilization, its economic viability is challenged by high initial investment and operational costs. Nevertheless, the study identifies optimization opportunities in feed management, water usage, and electricity efficiency to enhance sustainability and profitability. These findings emphasize the importance of integrating economic, environmental, and technological considerations to advance intensive aquaculture practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Aquaculture: New Technologies, Culture Systems and Integration of Emerging Species)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-6
Back to TopTop