SOLUTION / PUBLIC SOURCE RECORD
Optimar eliminates sea lice without drugs or chemicals
- Published 22 November 2019; updated 21 September 2026; estimated reading time 3 minutes. Listed as available under Aquaculture and fisheries.
- Optimar’s Optilice treats salmon and rainbow trout using temperature-controlled fresh or salt water, without delousing drugs or chemicals. Fish are gently moved from a net pen through treatment and into a clean pen in under one minute. Treatment-water temperature can be matched to sea conditions, and heat can be reused to reduce energy use.
- The page says temperature differences, water movement and a final flush cause over 98% of sea lice to detach. Filters destroy captured lice so they are not released back into the water; a specially designed fish pump is intended to reduce stress. The process is described as causing no physiological damage, slime loss or eye damage.
- Optilice Commander provides operational control/monitoring, treatment-condition oversight and detailed incident reports for authorities or other stakeholders.
- Challenge context: sea lice are naturally present but, the article says, have reached unusually high concentrations with intensive salmon and trout farming. It describes lice as impairing fish growth and salt balance and increasing disease/predation vulnerability. Resistance to commonly used chemical treatments and possible impacts on prawns and other species are cited as reasons for non-chemical methods.
- Market context in the 2019 article: Canada, Chile, Norway and the UK are identified as major affected countries. It states Norway produced around 50% of farmed salmon and trout, Chile 25%, and Canada/UK the remaining 25%. Regulations require approved lice-reduction methods; many farms had adopted thermal delousing.
- Historical deployment figures: launched in 2016; as of May 2019, 55 units had been sold in Norway and used to treat over 5 million tonnes of fish. These figures are explicitly dated to 2019.
- Linked to SDG 2, Zero hunger; SDG 9, Industry, innovation and infrastructure; and SDG 14, Life below water, through fish production and reducing aquaculture chemicals/environmental impacts.
- Contact: Per Vidar Lange, Sales Manager, Per.Vidar.Lange@optimar.no. Phone number is behind a collapsed reveal control. Company: OPTIMAR AS, Valderøyvegen 1129, 6050 Valderøya, Norway; optimarglobal.com/en.