Middle Bay Sustainable Aquaculture Institute
(Agrimarine Industries)

Middle Bay Sustainable Aquaculture Institute, Concept Drawing

Based in Campbell River, BC, Agrimarine Industries has previously grown fish successfully in land-based concrete tanks, and will soon install 5,500-cubic-metre floating tanks. These tanks will be anchored in place on pilings and will rise and fall with the tide.

They will be made from an incredibly strong shipbuilding material, consisting of a fibreglass reinforced plastic sheath surrounding closed cell high density foam.

The Middle Bay Project will farm local Chinook salmon and collect and compost the solid waste generated by the fish.

The water inside is exchanged every hour using energy-efficient pumps. Waste from the bottom of the tank is pumped to a barge, where the solids are filtered out and composted before the water is returned to the ocean. See www.sustainable–aquaculture.ca

AgriMarine Industries' plan is laughably logical: It's putting giant tanks in the ocean so the fish can't mess with the environment around them.

"By building a solid-wall container where you can collect the waste, you address 80% of the issues with the net-cage operations," says Richard Buchanan, presidentof Campbell River, B.C.-based AgriMarine.
"The potential is enormous for this technology."
- Carry Tait, Financial Post Business, Oct 2, 2007

Mariculture Systems

Mariculture Systems have developed an in-water floating container system called SARGO ™, which consists of a hard shell made of polypropylene and fiberglass.

This company has successfully tested one pilot system in Washington State that showed many promising environmental and economic improvements over an adjacent open net pen operation. Mariculture Systems is attempting to secure funding in order to install a system at Yellow Island Aquaculture on Quadra Island in BC.


Neptune Industries

Aquasphere System Schematic

Neptune Industries' Aquasphere system is a floating, semi-rigid containment system that uses a series of jointed, articulating tanks. The tanks function as both nursery and grow-out systems.

The Aquasphere system works with a self-regulating, air-injection floatation system and includes a solid waste removal system as well as an air-lift pumping system. It is also designed to operate using alternative energy sources.

This technology has been used successfully to grow a generation of hybrid striped bass to harvest. See www.aquabiologics.net

Silfurstjarnan Fish Farm

	Land based tank system in Iceland

The Silfurstjarnan fish farm is a land-based system in Iceland where fish are reared in a number of individual tanks of various sizes.

The tanks are circular, different in diameter and depth, the smaller tanks used for fingerlings and the biggest for fish in the 1 - 5 kg size. The smaller tanks are made of fiberglass; whereas, the bigger ones are precast concrete elements, held together by tensional steel cable girths and surrounding soil.

Installed fish tank capacity at present is about 15,000 m3 in the main plant.

Excerpted from ‘HighTechnology in Geothermal Fish Farming at Silfurstjarnan Ltd. , NE_Iceland’ by Georgssona and Fridleifsson, National Energy Authority