Achievements

On June 10th, Nguyen Cong Duc and Huynh Minh Trang, from the DTU International School and Pharmacology Faculty at Duy Tan University, competed with formidable opponents from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore to win second place in the East Asia Go-Green-In-The-City contest, with their project “A solution for Eco-friendly shrimp farming with zero water replacement”, sponsored bySchneider Electric.

During a shrimp farming survey in Truong Dinh in Danang and at Nui Thanh in Quang Nam, Nguyen Cong Duc and Huynh Minh Trang researched the problems experienced facing shrimp farmers, especially the lack of adequate waste water treatment facilities, which improve the quality of the shrimp and the waste feed. 

Using direct waste treatment microorganisms in a shrimp farmpond, the DTU students managed to solve the issues of the treatment of waste feed deposited on the bottom of the pond, without having to install atraditional, wastewater treatment system. They cultivated microorganisms directly in the pond to provide a cleanerbreeding environment, to prevent disease and produce fresh and nutritious shrimp. 

This method will allow shrimp farmers save from 70% to 80% in energy, water and feed bills, because they no longer need to refresh the pond water. After harvesting, it will be possible to immediately introduce new shrimp without the cost of treating the pond. Then excess microorganisms can be used as cattle or poultry feed, or as microbial fertilizer for crops. Nguyen Cong Duc and Huynh Minh Trang hope that their solution will lead to a cleaner, sustainable, and environmentally friendly shrimp farming industry in Vietnam.

This solution also provides an automatic monitoring and control system that measures pH levels, temperature and dissolved oxygen with sensors to monitor the quality of the aquatic environment in the pond. It automatically controls the feed system, pumps and water fans to ensure the optimum aquatic environment for the developing shrimp. Farmers can keep an eye on and control their farms through observational data, whichis then uploaded automatically and independently to a cloud database. The team also plans to create a pond monitoring and control application for mobile devices to automatically give status updates and provide timely alerts to the farmer if problemsarise.

Nguyen Cong Duc said: “Recently, new technological solutions have been devised to support shrimp farmers. However, these solutions have not been widely used because they are expensive and require farmers to have specialized knowledge. With our eco-friendly shrimp farming method, with no water replacement necessary, we aim to provide farmers with a sustainable shrimp farming solution at reasonable cost which is readily available, suitable for both small and medium size shrimp farms and will significantly improve quality and profit for the farmer."