Aquasend’s miniDOT Guaranteed Success on Iron Chef

Aquasend’s miniDOT® Clear Logger played a vital role in the success of television franchise Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend Episode 7: Battle of Live Sturgeon. How? The competitors’ challenge ingredient, sturgeon, had to be transported from Northern California and maintained prior to the episodes’ filming.

Maintaining top quality and overall condition of food products when filming is a complicated, daunting task, especially when the product is live sturgeon. The Iron Chef episode centered around battling chefs creating dishes with sturgeon as the main ingredient. It was crucial that the sturgeon arrived to set alive and in pristine condition, the Aquasend miniDOT ensured just this.

To guarantee the live sturgeon survived the ten-hour travel, the Aquasend miniDOT® Clear Logger was utilized to monitor dissolved oxygen levels and water quality in the sturgeon transport tanks. The sturgeon, needing to be camera and dish ready in top condition, traveled with the miniDOT where it constantly monitored the water quality of the fish tanks. Without healthy fish, the episode would have had to be canceled at great expense to the production company.

Tony Vaught, President of the California Aquaculture Association (CAA) and owner of Professional Aquaculture Services (PAS), was contracted to supply and transport the fish to set.

During the episode planning process, Vaught consulted with Iron Chef producers and staff to determine which fish to use for the episode. In an effort to better familiarize viewers with the many culinary qualities of sturgeon meat, as well as its prehistoric history, Vaught recommended using cultured sturgeon. With the producers in agreement, Vaught contracted with The Fishery in Galt, California, to supply the high-quality sturgeon needed for filming.

Vaught used the miniDOT logger throughout the entire duration of the trip recording real-time data of the tank water. Tony shares “Proper oxygen levels during transport are crucial. Not only does the miniDOT allow for quick checks of oxygen levels, the miniDOT records the oxygen levels for the entire trip. This information can be retrieved to show the customer that conditions were optimal during transport.”

“The miniDOT is rugged, reliable and is an essential tool during transport as well as for evaluating conditions after the live product is delivered. Having reliable data not only protects the fish in transit, but it also guards against wasting oxygen, one of the expenses incurred,” said Tony Vaught.

Aquasend centers on product-engineering to develop durable instruments that improve water quality with continuous monitoring to transform aquafarms worldwide. The Iron Chef franchise’s reliance on the miniDOT® Clear Logger for the episodes main ingredient, demonstrates Aquasend’s pioneering technology in the aquaculture industry to ensure accurate and reliable measurements to ensure product quality.