2,250 m³ Tilapia RAS Project

Project Overview

Located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this operational freshwater tilapia RAS retrofit project has a system water volume of 2,250 m³ and 25 existing rectangular culture tanks. Each tank holds 90 m³ and measures 15 m × 5 m × 1.2 m. Before the retrofit, the reported water circulation interval was two hours. The original biological treatment system comprised two tanks measuring 5 m × 7 m × 1.2 m, each with a volume of 42 m³, where the filter media had turned black and developed an unpleasant odor.

The farm was operating at a stocking density of 20 kg/m³. The customer wanted to increase density to improve the economic value of the existing facility, but earlier attempts had increased fish mortality. YUTANK’s on-site engineering assessment identified inadequate solids removal, aeration that disturbed settled fecal matter, excessive retention time in the settling tanks, insufficient drum-filter capacity and a mismatch in biological treatment capacity.

Working within the existing tank structure, YUTANK proposed dividing the 25 culture tanks into four recirculation units serving 6, 6, 6 and 7 tanks. The retrofit included changes to the tank-drainage direction, additional inclined-plate baffles and an optimized aeration arrangement, together with reconfigured drum filters, settling units and biological filtration. YUTANK’s scope covered system design, main equipment manufacturing, on-site installation and commissioning.

The supplied project report states that these changes improved solids removal and recirculating-water treatment on the existing tank foundations, and that stocking density increased from 20 kg/m³ to 50 kg/m³ following the retrofit.

In feedback supplied with the project record, the Saudi project representative noted that the original RAS had been designed by another company and had remained at 20 kg/m³. The representative credited YUTANK’s site assessment with identifying design issues and proposing improvements, and expressed strong approval of the recommendations.

Related technical guide: What Is an Aquaculture Drum Filter?. Another project for this species: 2,500 m³ Tilapia RAS Project.