As a home aquaponics grower, I am really interested in the opportunity to develop tools that help this industry grow smarter. The impact to open-water fisheries can be undone if the markets can be affected to appreciate farm-raised fish for their quality.
I think there is such an incredible opportunity in the sector, and it probably looks a lot like any of the other sectors that have been augmented by data - gather giant piles of any measurable detail, and hope that after filtering you see a pattern that doesn't depend on your production environment running as many sensors ( or tensors ).
Last Thought: Fish transfer pumps are not only a thing, but one of the best ways to have the whole pond population march past your camera in a lighting environment where you have more control.
This is a great comment. You are absolutely right about the data opportunity. The industry is so data sparse right now that even basic measurements at scale would be a step change. We are seeing that firsthand with our customer. They went from sampling a few dozen fish by hand to continuous measurement and the insights are already compounding.
Thank you for the fish pump link. We have looked at pump based systems as a way to create controlled measurement environments. You get consistent lighting, predictable fish orientation, and the fish are already moving through a constrained path. The challenge is you are still dealing with water turbidity, particulates, and bubbles in the flow which can mess with imaging. It is better than open water but not a free pass on the vision problems.
We have also been looking at pescalators which use an Archimedes screw design to lift fish out of the water. Some setups combine this with anesthetization for operations that require handling. The tradeoff is you are adding stress and complexity but you get a much cleaner imaging environment. There is no single right answer here and the best approach depends on the species, life stage, and what you are trying to measure. This is definitely technology that will develop over time as the industry matures.
What species are you working with in your aquaponics setup?
Great question. We are building our entire labeling and data management system in house. Early on we tried existing platforms but they did not fit our workflow. We have a lot of video data and need custom labeling for things like keypoints, body outlines, and deformity classification that off the shelf tools do not handle well.
Building it ourselves is cheaper at our scale, gives us tighter integration between labeling, training pipelines, and deployment, and lets us iterate faster. We can assign tasks to annotators, version datasets, and push models to edge devices from one system. When you are trying to close the loop between data collection on farm and deployment you cannot afford fragmented tooling.
Thanks! Yes turbidity has been one of our bigger challenges. Water clarity can shift dramatically throughout the day depending on feeding, fish activity, and weather. We have had to build our calibration datasets to capture that variance otherwise the quantized models degrade fast in production. We are also experimenting with different lighting setups to cut through particulate but it is still a work in progress :)
Shinkei definitely has cool tech!
Aquaculture has already surpassed commercial fishing in terms of production and has become the cheapest source of protein in many countries. We are excited to help the industry grow even further.
I am a fan of the fish cursor. We should make the internet quirky again. This is like a modern take on Geocities websites, and they should do things like fish cursors now while they still can before a board of VCs comes in and makes them remove the fish cursor.
As a home aquaponics grower, I am really interested in the opportunity to develop tools that help this industry grow smarter. The impact to open-water fisheries can be undone if the markets can be affected to appreciate farm-raised fish for their quality.
I think there is such an incredible opportunity in the sector, and it probably looks a lot like any of the other sectors that have been augmented by data - gather giant piles of any measurable detail, and hope that after filtering you see a pattern that doesn't depend on your production environment running as many sensors ( or tensors ).
Last Thought: Fish transfer pumps are not only a thing, but one of the best ways to have the whole pond population march past your camera in a lighting environment where you have more control.
https://www.miprcorp.com/fish-pumping/ - just one example with decent pictures
This is a great comment. You are absolutely right about the data opportunity. The industry is so data sparse right now that even basic measurements at scale would be a step change. We are seeing that firsthand with our customer. They went from sampling a few dozen fish by hand to continuous measurement and the insights are already compounding.
Thank you for the fish pump link. We have looked at pump based systems as a way to create controlled measurement environments. You get consistent lighting, predictable fish orientation, and the fish are already moving through a constrained path. The challenge is you are still dealing with water turbidity, particulates, and bubbles in the flow which can mess with imaging. It is better than open water but not a free pass on the vision problems.
We have also been looking at pescalators which use an Archimedes screw design to lift fish out of the water. Some setups combine this with anesthetization for operations that require handling. The tradeoff is you are adding stress and complexity but you get a much cleaner imaging environment. There is no single right answer here and the best approach depends on the species, life stage, and what you are trying to measure. This is definitely technology that will develop over time as the industry matures.
What species are you working with in your aquaponics setup?
Great product!
I wonder how do you manage data labeling? Do you outsource it by using data label vendors or do you have something in-house?
Great question. We are building our entire labeling and data management system in house. Early on we tried existing platforms but they did not fit our workflow. We have a lot of video data and need custom labeling for things like keypoints, body outlines, and deformity classification that off the shelf tools do not handle well. Building it ourselves is cheaper at our scale, gives us tighter integration between labeling, training pipelines, and deployment, and lets us iterate faster. We can assign tasks to annotators, version datasets, and push models to edge devices from one system. When you are trying to close the loop between data collection on farm and deployment you cannot afford fragmented tooling.
This is an awesome concept. Thanks for sharing.
Have you had any issues with turbidity so far?
Thanks! Yes turbidity has been one of our bigger challenges. Water clarity can shift dramatically throughout the day depending on feeding, fish activity, and weather. We have had to build our calibration datasets to capture that variance otherwise the quantized models degrade fast in production. We are also experimenting with different lighting setups to cut through particulate but it is still a work in progress :)
Shinkei was for the rich; you guys make it for all
Shinkei definitely has cool tech! Aquaculture has already surpassed commercial fishing in terms of production and has become the cheapest source of protein in many countries. We are excited to help the industry grow even further.
The fish cursor is cute, but extremely annoying.
I like it, but it should just be visual. It jacks my default scrollpad/mouse behavior, which is the annoying part.
Agreed. Feels icky. Made me want to leave the page as quickly as possible again.
We got a little too excited about the fish theme. Noted for the next iteration.
^ no way this was tested by anyone with eyes before it was deployed
I am a fan of the fish cursor. We should make the internet quirky again. This is like a modern take on Geocities websites, and they should do things like fish cursors now while they still can before a board of VCs comes in and makes them remove the fish cursor.
Ha, thank you. We figured if we are building robots for fish we might as well commit to the bit. Enjoy it while it lasts.