In the world of closed containment aquaculture, it appears size matters. Never was that more true in the Campbell River area than in the past few weeks as a massive floating solid-wall tank was built on the waterfront by the Agrimarine Industries/Middle Bay Sustainable Aquaculture Institute (MBSAI) partnership. "It feels wonderful," laughed Robert Walker, vice president for Agrimarine Industries, at the Middle Bay site Wednesday. "It has been a very long time and it's exciting to see it. This is the first one in the world and we're very much looking forward to getting fish in it."
After years of design, government approval, funding efforts and redesign, sections of the gargantuan fibre glass tank were assembled on site in the last two weeks. The 3,000 cubic metre tank has a 24 metre inside diameter and a depth of almost nine metres. At press time yesterday, the plan called for the tank to be towed into place and filled with seawater by the afternoon.
"We hope to have fish in the water within the next two weeks," Walker said. "There are no other hard-walled tanks of this capacity. We've designed it to address many of the problems that currently exist with the net-cage industry. We hope to have a working system very shortly and be able to demonstrate that we have a solution here."
The challenge facing closed-containment proponents is getting operating costs into the same range as those of open-net ocean fish farms. The aquaculture industry has long argued closed containment is too costly, but Walker is out to prove that contention wrong. Read more...
After years of design, government approval, funding efforts and redesign, sections of the gargantuan fibre glass tank were assembled on site in the last two weeks. The 3,000 cubic metre tank has a 24 metre inside diameter and a depth of almost nine metres. At press time yesterday, the plan called for the tank to be towed into place and filled with seawater by the afternoon.
"We hope to have fish in the water within the next two weeks," Walker said. "There are no other hard-walled tanks of this capacity. We've designed it to address many of the problems that currently exist with the net-cage industry. We hope to have a working system very shortly and be able to demonstrate that we have a solution here."
The challenge facing closed-containment proponents is getting operating costs into the same range as those of open-net ocean fish farms. The aquaculture industry has long argued closed containment is too costly, but Walker is out to prove that contention wrong. Read more...
This blog is written by Martin Little The Aquaculturists, published and supported by the International Aquafeed Magazine from Perendale Publishers.
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