Non-invasive clamp-on metering

Katronic non-invasive, clamp-on flow metering has been used to monitor water flow within a leading fish farm.

Ocean Matters is a business offering a sustainable and eco-friendly approach to minimise the use of medicinal chemicals in salmon farming. They breed lumpfish, or lumpsuckers, a ‘cleaner’ species that just loves to pick the sea lice from farm salmon, eating up to 100 at a time. They coexist with the farmed salmon, and significantly reduce the amount of chemicals required to successfully rear them.

At Ocean Matters’ bio-secure facility in North Wales, nothing is left to chance, and the movement of water between the fish tanks and filtration systems is monitored using a portable Katronic KATflow 200 portable flow meter.

Simply clamped on to the PVC pipes, the battery powered KATflow 200 can be fixed and then moved so it both monitors and logs the flow of water throughout the process.

Katronic equipment operates ultrasonically, firing an acoustic pulse through the wall of a pipe using a pair of compact transducers, comparing the time taken for the pulse to reflect from the pipe wall both upstream and downstream to derive a flow rate.

Commenting, Ocean Matters Farm Supervisor Dave Jones, said, “We have been really pleased with both the simplicity of operation of the Katronic meter, and the support we received from the office in Coventry. Key for us was that the meter worked well on our PVC pipes, and it has been excellent.