Salmon in Aquaponics?

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Portable Farms just announced a "Salmon Aquaponics System" - (portablefarm dot com slash farm2011 slash salmon-aquaponics).  I'm pretty surprised by this as I thought salmon were salt-water fish.  The entire web page just talks about dealing with temperature differentials.  Anyone have any idea what is going on here?  Why wouldn't you just call that a Trout System?

[Averan]

Salmon need extremely good water quality and the filtration required for a >50% recirculating system is massive.

This simply means that with a salmon farm that size you could attach an aquaponics farm for >50% recirculation/filtration that is even larger. You would probably make more from the tremendous amount of vegetables and fruit than from the fish at that scale!

I think the reason behind all of these stories is the capital cost of filtration equipement and the ongoing maintenance and pumping costs are too expensive to turn a profit.

Because traditional fish farm filtration did not in and of itself generate any revenue, whereas an aquaponic farm as fish farm filtration would return additional profits off the same given cost of fish food input!

[Jon Parr]

Well, I once again have Kokanee eggs in the incubator (last year my chiller died, and so did the eggs). With some luck and diligence, I hope to add Kokanee fingerlings to the system. Will keep you all posted.

[Meg Stout]

Cool project with the Kokanee eggs! Good luck (I know you've got the diligence part nailed)!

[Carey Ma]

Hi all, I have nothing to say about these guys or their system but about a decade ago I had exported high quality fish feed to a now defunct fish farm in  the Beijing area, trying to raise salmon. Salmon/ trout/ steelhead need constant flowing, pristine, fresh, cold water; otherwise IMO quite suitable for use in AP as a first stage/ tier product. A bit more complicated than mono-crop production found in most backyard AP systems but theoretically doable. I hope to do some experiments some day...if I am ever able to move back to Washington State.

[Anthony Payne]

I have been reading for hours on this thread, all the sites the bashing, the getting back on track. In all the farming with choho in the middle of the countries. Not one word did I read about the four years it take a choho to be a choho. I see that you can get fingerlings to grow a little, but to make the choho reach it true size (10-15Lbs) they must go to sea. A steelhead is just a rainbow trout that went to sea. In fact some of the fish from the same egg cluster don't swim out to sea ever. This makes them a rainbow trout nothing more. To me eating a Juvenal choho, to this NW raise rod and reel salmon fisherman seems useless. The fish needs to go to sea fight to live and then fight to spawn and die and feed the off spring of the next generation that they died for. Making the rivers healthy with their decomposing carcasses.

Atlantic salmon well... to us in the NW states we don't call them salmon, in fact it's a word that can get your mouth washed out with soap. We hate the farming of Atlantic salmon in our bays and rivers, it's all in the name leave them in that ocean please.

Raising salmon in the middle of a rock It can be done you just through money at it. You would need to have tanks of salt water at 48F to go as low 28F to replicate the temps of the north pacific. Feed them herring shrimp smelt. Might work.

We in Washington, our fish and game have farmed all of the fish even they can only produce fish that are 40% -60% the size of native fish. Fun to catch. In the Great Lakes I have been told of choho and chinook I assume that they reach the ocean through the canal they dug for the ships. I'm not big on that practice either Creator has put them in the spots for a reason and we go and mess it up.

On the others side of my narrow minded brain, what really happens to a salmon that can't make it to the ocean? We have koknee well we don't hear about farmed raised chinook or choho the raising them in just fresh water. Till now with the two on choho articles now. Hmmm I think the chinook is the critter that will not play ball with mans game on manipulation or the mighty king salmon would be under the boot of capitalism. At this point the king is fighting hard to stay with a clean blood line.  

[Converse]

Back on Dec 7th or so (I think 2011) I replied about raising Kokanee, which are just landlocked Sockeye salmon.  These are a true pacific salmon species. And while they do require cooler water, there are plants that will grow in the conditions that they require.  and yes, water quality may be a huge part of the AP daily watch...but the day may be coming when it will be well worth the effort.  People are starting to sit up and take notice about where their pacific salmon are swimming in the wild.  A kokanee raised on a 'natural diet" may just be what sells well.  But not even considering a commercial outlet, I would be happier eating a salmon I know was raised not in water that passed by Hanford, or fish that migrated in the Japanese currents of the Pacific Ocean.  Yes, I live in Washington,  and I do eat salmon out of the Columbia River. We are seriously looking into a system to raise kokanee...Stay tuned....

   Yes, it takes them a while to mature, but in the mean time they will be providing the "fuel" for growing the veggies.  After the first three/four years  (each year adding another group of juveniles) there will be a yearly harvest of fish available. Not a fast turn over, so it would need to be something a person really wants to invest their time in. Of course, unless you are raising them to spawn, they can always be harvested prior to the 3/4 years.

So Jon, I am really interested in  how things go for you this year!  Wishing you the best with your kokanee eggs!

- Converse

  

[Anthony Payne]

Converse, I did read this and you’ve mentioned it to me on another topic. Koknee is not what they are doing it's choho. Choho are not land locked salmon that have thousands of year to change to their habitat. I like koknee very much they do not taste like sea run salmon. I think the choho may just grow to 1-2 lbs die off early and not spawn. Is would not be a sustainable. I don't think the fish can take that radical change without problems. D.F.G. Has made a triployd (not sure of spelling)trout it's a frankenfish. They grow fast big and don't bread. I do not like to think that my food should be altered at the chromosome. Fun to catch, but I don't eat them. But market is asking for full on salmon that taste like salmon. I'm looking into raising koknee since you mentioned it to me. I think that if you can name a beer, then you can sell the fish.

John good luck on the koknee, please keep us up to date.

[john galt]

I am with you Sylvia. Salmon is a saltwater fish. I have caught them in the Atlantic, Pacific and the Salmon River in upstate NY. As fry they are in freshwater, then swim to the sea where they live until it is time to spawn and then they head back up the same creek in which they were hatched. Not really sure how to explain how they would live in a freshwater system besides, saltwater is not really conducive to growing plants which require freshwater. unless maybe you are growing sea beans? hehehe

[Curt Meilicke]

Just want to point out, there are a number of salmon species that have come to call Lake Michigan home.  Don't know how they were initially 'adjusted' to stay in the fresh water.  But there is now a complete cycle of growth and spawning that occurs.  It takes the hand of the DNR to gather eggs, hatch them, grow them to fry, and release them.  But the point is there are salmon that live entirely in fresh water.  The specific species are listed here.

 

http://www.michigancharterboats.com/species.html

[john galt]

Good info . wonder what are the temp requirements?

Curt Meilicke said:

Just want to point out, there are a number of salmon species that have come to call Lake Michigan home.  Don't know how they were initially 'adjusted' to stay in the fresh water.  But there is now a complete cycle of growth and spawning that occurs.  It takes the hand of the DNR to gather eggs, hatch them, grow them to fry, and release them.  But the point is there are salmon that live entirely in fresh water.  The specific species are listed here.

 

http://www.michigancharterboats.com/species.html

[John Lysfjord]

I met with the owner of a commercial salmon hatchery last month to find out if it would be possible to connect an aquaponic system to an existing hatchery. Based on what I've read in this discussion thread, this might be of interest to you all.

This was a hatchery in Norway that produces about 2.5M fingerlings/smolt per year in fresh water for the salmon farm industry. Once the fingerlings reach mature age, they are sold to ocean-based salmon farms. These ocean-based systems are based in the fjords of Norway where strong currents ensure sufficient water flow. So you can still make money from selling salmon, although you may sell it to a salmon farm instead of the consumer market.

When I asked about what they did with all the waste from the fish, they responded that they had to filter it out. They had been considering to use a centrifuge to filter out the fish waste from the water, and then sell the dry waste as fertilizer, but the cost of running such an operation would not be covered by the revenue from the fertilizer they produced.

I am considering to approach this salmon hatchery to setup a small pilot project, but I'd like to hear from someone with experience from cold water aquaponics. I.e. where water is just above freezing. How do you get the bacteria established? Both nitrosomonas and nitrobacter aren't too happy at such low temperatures. 

[TCLynx]

You just need MORE bio-filtration to get enough of it to support running at cooler temperatures.  Many people grow trout in aquaponics, trout are not that different from salmon really.  There are plenty of landlocked salmon.

The question of is it financially worth it, well that is the big question.