Wellboat Smolt Counter

The VAKI Wellboat Smolt Counter is specially designed for use with big vacuum pumps on wellboats. The well proven technology on hatcheries all over the world, has been adapted to the wellboats, and it gives accurate count that can be verified with images of every fish. The size distribution and average weight of the smolt is also available on the sofisticated software. The capacity is very high, with even flow of fish through the counter it can cope with more than 300,000 smolts per hour.

The counting technology

The fish pass over the light source where a digital imaging line scanning camera is used to grab the silhouette image of every single fish. The silhouettes are then analyzed and used for counting and size estimation.

The computer in the bridge

The computer and counting software are in the bridge and controled from a touch pad screen. Out on the deck is the counter where the camera is placed in a housing and scanning the width of 1400 mm counting area. A cable from the counter to the steering house enables the captain to have full control over the counter.

Video control

For monitoring and full control from the bridge there is a video-camera on the counter looking at the dewatering section, so the captain can adjust the speed of the pump for optimal delivery of fish and water to the counter.

The counting software

An advanced software is used to count the fish as they pass the counting area of 1400mm width. The capacity is very high and the counter can easily cope with 100 fish per second with over 98% accuracy. All the images are stored on the hard disk and can be used for verifying the counting. The screenshot to the right shows one second of counting.