Spatial Distribution Patterns and Stress Potential Signs of Clownfish in Recirculating Aquaculture Systems

Monitoring and detecting fish behaviors provide essential information on fish welfare and contribute to achieving intelligent production in global aquaculture. This work proposes an efficient approach to analyze the spatial distribution status and motion patterns of juvenile clownfish \textit{(Amphiprion bicinctus)} maintained in aquaria at three stocking densities (1, 5, and 10 individuals/aquarium). The estimated displacement is the key factor in assessing the dispersion and velocity to express the clownfish's spatial distribution and movement behavior in a recirculating aquaculture system. Indeed, we aim at computing the velocity, magnitude, and turning angle using an optical flow method to assist aquaculturists in efficiently monitoring and identifying fish behavior. We test the system design on a database containing two days of video streams of juvenile clownfish maintained in aquaria. The proposed displacement estimation reveals good performance in measuring clownfish's motion and dispersion characteristics leading to assess the potential signs of stress behaviors. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique for quantifying variation in clownfish activity levels between recordings taken in the morning and afternoon at different stocking densities.