## 1 Introduction  
The scope of smart cities encompasses various sectors such as manufacturing, transportation, agriculture and aquaculture, retail, and more. With the rapid increase in population, food security is poised to become a global challenge in the future. Recognizing that smart agriculture will be a critical topic within future smart cities, this study focuses on the aquaculture industry, specifically on smart aquaculture.  
The mass production and cultivation of farmed fish worldwide follow similar practices. Without the application of specialized technologies during production, fish in ponds can easily continue to reproduce uncontrollably, leading to significant disparities in fish size, slow growth rates, low feed efficiency, and a decline in the harvestable size and quality, all of which result in increased costs and various management challenges. Therefore, the primary goal of hatcheries is to stock ponds with all-male fingerlings at the outset, positioning hatcheries as the key suppliers of large quantities of male fingerlings.  
In the operation of producing large quantities of single-sex male fingerlings, it is essential to separate and raise male and female broodish separately to prevent mating and spawning until the appropriate time, when they are then paired and allowed to mate and spawn, potentially even hatching the fry. This separation process facilitates concentrated fingering production, and increasing the frequency of this process can effectively enhance the final output of fingerlings. Currently, the gender screening of broodish in hatcheries relies heavily on the manual labor of experienced technicians, which demands significant physical and visual effort, severely limiting the time duration and daily output that each technician can achieve. This, in turn, affects the hatchery's ability to supply fingerlings. Additionally, training technicians to develop adequate skills in broodish screening often requires a considerable amount of time. As a result, the entire operation of hatcheries today is a standard \"fully manual operation\", which is not attractive to younger generations and poses a significant barrier to further industry development.  
Therefore, this study aims to develop an intelligent identification system for the aquaculture industry, which could become a crucial tool for technical upgrades in breeding operations. Additionally, it is anticipated that as this identification tool becomes more sophisticated, it could be expanded for use in grow-out farms, particularly during the small and medium fish stages in the existing segmented farming model, thereby maximizing commercial benefits and leading to a comprehensive upgrade of the aquaculture industry.  
By integrating advanced technological control techniques into the fundamental operations of hatcheries, this approach aims to overcome the bottlenecks in operational efficiency associated with broodish gender screening and to enhance production capacity. This could position the technology as one of the pioneers in introducing advanced technology to aquaculture, driving new transformations in the industry, attracting younger generations to the field, and ensuring the transmission of aquaculture technology. Ultimately, this would enhance the effectiveness of aquaculture within smart cities through the application of AI (artificial intelligence) technology.