Cooling Tank
The Dragon is Mikra’s signature cooling tank solution for fresh fish processing and one of our most celebrated products. Designed for both onboard and land-based operations, it helps processors achieve consistent product handling, reliable temperature control, and high raw material quality in a compact, robust system trusted by processors around the world.
Sufficient cooling of fresh fish is an essential step in fish processing, helping maintain fillet whiteness and preventing bacterial growth. The Dragon has been used successfully around the world for decades, delivering high quality product to end customers and earning a reputation for robustness, reliability, and consistent performance in the most demanding production environments.
Although built as a standard product platform, each Dragon is customized in size and cooling time to suit the specific application. The controller gives operators full control over cooling time, batch sizes, and temperature, while easy access to areas that require cleaning ensures minimum downtime between production cycles.
What the Dragon is used for
The Dragon is used for the controlled cooling of fresh fish after harvest or catch, where stable process conditions and gentle handling are critical to preserving raw material quality. It is suitable for both onboard vessels and onshore processing facilities, and is available in horizontal or vertical configurations depending on available floor space and layout requirements.
The vertical configuration is the newest version of the Dragon and was developed to save even more floor space onboard vessels. In this configuration, the infeed can remain on the production floor while the tank body extends through the floor down to the hold, making better use of limited vessel space without compromising process performance. Research comparing the two configurations found no significant difference in bleeding performance between them.
Key capabilities
- Ensures every fish is submerged in the cooling medium throughout the process
- Prevents floating of fish during processing
- Allows customizable cooling time to suit different raw materials and requirements
- Supports gentle handling with no bending of fish during processing
- Provides easy access for cleaning to minimise downtime between production cycles
- Optimises floor space usage through vertical or horizontal configurations
Technical overview
- Capacity: depends on raw material, contact us for details
- Driven by motors
- Refrigerant: sea ice or slush ice
- Approximate length range: 3,000 to 15,000 mm
- Approximate width range: 800 to 2,000 mm
- Available in vertical and horizontal configurations
- Suitable for onboard and land-based use
Proven in the field
More than 500 Dragon units have been sold worldwide in a wide range of sizes and configurations. The robustness of the design makes the machine run smoothly and lowers the need for frequent spare part changes, making it a well-established and dependable solution for processors looking for reliable long-term performance in fresh fish cooling.
Customer experience
“I was having a problem with chilling of the fish on board one of my vessels and came across this solution provided by Mikra. I looked at a few other solutions but realized that the Dragon was the right solution for me because it took up smaller space compared to the throughput and because every fish is submerged in the cooling medium and no raw material has the chance of floating. The Dragon met all my expectations and more and I decided to have them installed in all of my four ships. It also has to be mentioned that all work, construction and installation of the solutions were well done and all deliveries were as promised.”