On August 24, 2016, President Barack Obama used the Antiquities Art to declare 87,563 acres of mountains, forest and rivers as Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. The monument is located in northern Penobscot County, Maine. This includes a large section of the upper East Branch of the Penobscot River known as a significant piece of this extraordinary natural and cultural landscape.

Non-profit hatcheries rely on donation of time and money by the community at large to keep their operations running.

About three hours north of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, a not-for-profit trout hatchery has mastered the art of sustainable stocking.

Scott Snyder has joined Zeigler Bros., Inc. as the company’s new nutritional technology manager. In his role, Snyder will provide nutritional and technical support for domestic aquaculture production and customers as well as international licensees.

Looking back at the opening of Marine Harvest’s new Inchmore hatchery, freshwater manager John Richmond is optimistic.

MainStream Aquaculture has been at the forefront of aquaculture development for nearly two decades. The company’s new 1,000-tonne RAS facility, 30 minutes from downtown Melbourne, is an amalgamation of those years of experience in producing barramundi for the retail and food service sectors.

Although he appreciates the support already being given to the trout sector in France, Jean Ruche believes there’s still room for a better knowledge of the industry. To achieve this goal, he’s working in close cooperation with officials to create an improved regulatory framework for the sector.

With its frigid winters and abundant cold lakes and streams Canada’s finfish industry is dominated by the culture of trout and salmon. However, in the heart of central Ontario lies the small town of Zephyr, where a small company is rearing non-traditional species in a non-traditional way.

Despite its remoteness, the Río Hollemberg smolt farm is equipped with state-of-the-art technology, providing Salmones Magallanes with about 4.8 million smolts every year. This is sufficient to fulfill the requirements of the company’s eight sea sites in the region.

Apollo Aquaculture Group (AAG) in Singapore is building an eight-story RAS in the city-state in order to produce grouper and shrimp. The company hopes to be in full production with its new RAS by 2020.

It’s no secret that New Zealand’s primary sector is driven by exports, and the New Zealand Scampi (Metanephrops Challengeri) fishery is no exception.

One of the facts of many aquaculture facilities is that your fish are going to need to be treated for gill and external parasites or fungus. Be it chloramine T, Parasite S or Peroxaid, the frequency of treatments depends on many factors specific to each facility.

Hatchery techniques that work excellently for one bivalve specie larvae may not always have similar results on another.

Production of steelhead smolts using natural origin broodstock can be optimized by sorting slower growing individuals several weeks after ponding and rearing them as age-2 smolts (S2), according to combined results from the hatchery and laboratory experiments of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Manchester Research Station.

Feeding Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) higher dietary phosphorous (P) throughout its freshwater life stage significantly reduces occurrence of vertebral malformations, according to a study conducted at the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling in Scotland.

Danish fish feed company BioMar is increasing it research capabilities with the opening of a new state-of-the-art marine fish larval trial unit. This addition expands BioMar's Aquaculture Technology Centre (ATC) Hirtshals facility in Denmark.

A study in Ecuador was able to demonstrate that hatchery production of rock oyster (Striostrea prismatica) spat is feasible, providing a basis for its large-scale propagation.

The first comprehensive book on the use of cleaner fish in aquaculture, edited by Jim Treasurer, research manager with FAI Aquaculture, Marine Research Facility Ardtoe, has recently been published. The new volume, which addresses the main issues in the farming of cleaner fish and offers guidance on how to improve growth and survival, includes contributions from a team of over 60 experts in cleaner fish biology, culture and deployment.

Rsearchers from Egypt and Saudi Arabia found that applications of green tea were beneficial to the growth performance of Asian sea bass fingerlings.

Looking after and promoting friendly bacteria in RAS systems, rather than killing the good with the bad, could have beneficial impacts on fish health and production profitability, according to the early findings of a three-year research project run by scientists in Norway, Denmark and Germany.

A team of researchers at Nofima (The Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research)'s Centre for Closed-Containment Aquaculture (CtrlAQUA) focused on skin to assess the health and welfare of salmon post-smolts.

Soy peptides (SP) can be used to enhance the immune response and survival of juvenile Japanese flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) under heat stress, according to a recent study. SP, a soy protein enzymatic hydrolysate, contains bioactive substances that could be utilized as an immune-stimulating feed ingredient. “Feed companies would greatly benefit from the study, as SP may now be a new ingredient source. Fish farmers may also exploit the potential of SP for increasing the defined function of cultured fish, especially in the context of climate change,” one of the authors, Janice Ragaza, told Hatchery International. Ragaza is an associate professor at the Department of Biology, Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. At the time of the study, she was still doing her doctorate studies on Fisheries Science at the Laboratory of Animal Aquatic Nutrition, Faculty of Fisheries, Kagoshima University in Japan. In the study, diet inclusions with zero, two, five and 10% SP were fed to juvenile flounder. “If the objective is for maximum growth, then the inclusion levels should be greater than 10% SP. If the objective is for thermotolerance, 10% SP is the optimum,” she said. After a feeding trials, the experimental groups were subjected to heat stress to measure survival rate and heat shock protein 70s (HSP70s) in gill, liver and skin. A significant reduction in HSP70s was observed among all groups during recovery period. “HSP70s usually show up when the organism experiences heat stress. The reduction in number over time means that the organism is reaching its equilibrium (i.e. normal, pre-stress) condition,” she said. She compared HSP70s to cooling fans inside laptops. “Like cooling fans, HSP70s bring the fish under heat stress, e.g. increase in water temperature, to stable conditions. With more HSP70s in the tissues, the fish is therefore more stable amid the stress exposure.”                                                                                         

The Fynest Caviar Co. can now proceed with finalizing plans to build a closed containment RAS on Loch Fyne in Cairndow, Scotland after the concept received the go-ahead from Argyll and Bute council’s planning committee.

Kingfish Zeeland, which operates a new RAS production facility for yellowtail kingfish (Seriola Lalandi) in the Netherlands, has confirmed that it’s started to sell product into the United States through its Florida partner Candor Seafood.

Ideal Fish has officially opened its brand new land-based aquaponic facility in Waterbury, Connecticut, in the United States, spanning 63,000-sq-ft of recirculating aquaculture system (RAS).

I remember when “organic” was just a basket full of spotted apples in the corner of the produce section. It’s not that anymore.  

Compared to on-shore grow-out farms, where water is pumped through tanks and raceways, fish hatcheries and nurseries use significantly less water. The reason is that the biomass produced in these facilities is normally 10 to 100 times smaller than in grow-out farms. So, why is there a need for RAS technologies in fish hatcheries?

A freshwater director for one of the world’s leading salmon producers explains how closed containment fits into the company’s corporate strategy going forward.

Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) present us with an alternative to seawater net-pen aquaculture.  The recent struggles with net pen licenses, and legislation in general, have made it difficult in many countries to expand current sea farms or create new ones.  

Consider these two scenarios: Business A – Fish enters farm at two grams in September and reaches 30g two years later; Business B – Same species of fish enters farm at two grams in October and reaches 30g in nine months.  

In 2013, the European Union’s food sector was a major consumer of energy, accounting for 26 per cent of final energy consumption. Agriculture and livestock production were responsible for 33.4 per cent of the energy costs associated with food consumed in the EU.

Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) technology development has been and continues to be a melding of borrowed engineering. Components of RAS originate from municipal and industrial wastewater treatment industries with applied research and development specifically on aquaculture technologies by academics in public and private institutions, as well as a little creative ingenuity provided by farmers, consultants and system suppliers.

A Norwegian wastewater treatment and purification company will be providing the technology for wastewater treatment for a new hatchery being built in Scotland.

Animal biotech and genetics company Enzootic and NRGene, provider of genomic big data analysis, have completed the sequencing and assembly of the world's first high-quality genome of freshwater shrimp M. rosenbergii.

Efforts to culture ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) have reached a major milestone with the first spawning of the farmed fish in captivity.

A study at the Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada investigated methods used to trigger spawning and artificially induce maturation in sea cucumber (Cucumaria frondosa).

Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada is a long way from the Balkans, but a European expert is looking to replicate the success he had there by raising freshwater crayfish in British Columbia.

Fish-breeding experts in Taiwan have broken new ground with the first successful breeding in captivity of one of Asia’s premium fish: the large-mouth grouper, known in the Philippines as lapu-lapu, but most commonly referred to in China as garupa.

The Tru Shrimp Company has signed an agreement with the Oceanic Institute of Hawaii Pacific University to develop a nucleus shrimp breeding program in the U.S. Under the agreement, Oceanic Institute will supply Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) breeding stock selected and developed exclusively for Tru Shrimp.

Aquaculture biotechnology firm Benchmark and salmon producer AquaChile have announced a breeding and genetics joint venture to form a new genetics company that will create a "world-class salmon breeding operation," according to a statement from Benchmark.

Riverence Hatchery in Washington state is putting the final touches to a state-of-the-art egg production facility, aiding their quest to grow and support the salmonid farming industry in the United States.

Croatia’s Cromaris has hired Scotland’s Xelect Ltd to render genetic services for the bream and bass producer. Under the agreement Xelect will provide complete genetic management service to Cromaris’ selective breeding program.

Through a grassroots-approach, a USAID-funded program is offering a solution for sub-Saharan Africa's fish farmers' perennial problem of sourcing catfish fingerlings.

The Philippines’ perennial shortage of milkfish fry may find its resolution in the National Broodstock Development Program (NBDP), an initiative of the Department of Agriculture – Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources through the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI).“A broodstock development program is considered one of the limiting factors faced by many industry stakeholders. This may be addressed with the help of the government by establishing a broodstock development facility which will cater to the needs of interested stakeholders for their broodstock requirements by operating a breeding and hatchery facility,” Francisco Santos, OIC-Chief at the Aquaculture R&D Division of the NFRDI, told Hatchery International.“With the increased number of hatcheries operating in the locality, producing and obtaining juveniles for aquaculture use is seen to have greater feasibility and economic viability,” Santos said.NBDP, which has been approved but not yet signed, covers the stock inventory of existing breeders, hatchery facilities and manpower, selection and upgrading of broodstock, development of breeders, screening and identification of program recipients, upgrading of knowledge and skills through training and technical staff.“While milkfish is important, its production has been hindered by various problems. Among the most critical of these is the limited supply of fry,” he said.Based on 2015 figures, the milkfish requirements of the Philippines was estimated at 2.5 billion fry. Private and government hatcheries supplied only one billion. The rest were either imported, mostly from Indonesia, or were wild fry.

A small number of Lost River and shortnose sucker fish were released along the shores of Oregon’s Upper Klamath Lake several weeks ago.

The mussels in the Delaware River Basin are about to get a helping hand.

LP Kuzmitch, a privately-owned company in Eastern Kazakhstan, plans to start producing sturgeon fingerlings in a bid to restore populations of this species in the region.

A rare trout makes its home in the upper reaches of the Gila River of New Mexico and Arizona. The Gila trout (Oncorhynchus gilae) is native only to small headwater streams where it was landlocked thousands of years ago from sea-run Oncorhynchus species.

The freshwater pearl mussel is under threat of extinction across England with most remaining populations under severe decline. Now, a new conservation project by the UK Environment Agency's Kielder Salmon Centre is using sea trout to help the mussels flourish once again.

NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) has started altering stocking times and location to optimize survival of Atlantic salmon smolts migrating down Maine's Narraguagus River into the Gulf of Maine on America's eastern seaboard.

How efforts by government agencies in California contributed to a record salmon return at the Mokelumne River Fish Hatchery

California salmon hatchery managers likely gave a well deserved sigh of relief when record winter rains of 2016/17 ended a five year drought and restored flows to the state’s salmon producing rivers. But the legacy of those drought years continues to haunt them, as poor adult returns this fall have reduced the egg production goals at Coleman hatchery, the states largest producer of Chinook fry, by half, according to Sacramento area media. Coleman aims for 12 million smolts to release each spring into Battle creek, a tributary of the Sacramento river. This year, it will be around six million. Poor adult returns to their natal stream, prevented staff from collecting and fertilizing enough eggs. However, there were plenty of Chinook around the California Central valley last fall, enough to provide a commercial and sports fishery, and other hatcheries met and exceeded their goals, but the Coleman fish just didn’t come straight home. Managers say that giving smolts a ride down river in the spring, in response to past drought conditions, is to blame. Hatchery staff were able to collect sufficient eggs and sperm to produce fry on target during the drought years. But spring river conditions in 2014 and 2015 were described as “abysmal”. Warm water temperatures and low river levels could harm the freshly released smolts and increase the likely hood of predation, so in those years they were pumped into tanker trucks and driven the 280 miles down stream to acclimatization pens at the mouth of the Sacramento river. This means that they missed the normal “river imprinting” process and that has disoriented the fish that attempted to find their way home this fall. Historical returns to the Coleman are around 143,000 adult fish. Last fall saw merely 3,000. That was only enough to collect and fertilize about four million eggs. But staff were able to round up some of the missing brethren. Wire tags indicated that many of the strays ended up at Nimbus hatchery on the America River, another branch of the Sacramento, and they gave up another two million eggs for Coleman production. In an effort to avoid mixing genetic strains, US Fish and Wildlife Service officials declined to bring in fish from other watersheds to increase Coleman numbers.

How government and tribal members have combined forces to save a rare and endangered species of trout in Arizona. The Apache trout is named for the people and the place that are intertwined with one another. The yellow trout ornamented with black spots, white-tipped fins, and a raccoon-like eye mask lives naturally only in the headwaters of the White, Black, and Little Colorado rivers near the New Mexico border. These waters harbor some of the last remaining populations of this pretty trout found nowhere else but in streams that rim the White Mountains of Arizona. The fish has been well known to anglers for some time. Local farmers and ranchers made summertime forays into the high country to catch them. One correspondent, simply “J.H.” from Show Low, Arizona, wrote in a July 1886 issue of the St. John’s Herald: “I speak truly when I say it was the most enjoyable period of my life.” He recounted how he and his pals caught scads of Apache trout from the White River during a prolonged summer outing. The sport fishery was renowned. The Apache trout had become known to science a few years earlier in 1873, when it was collected by members of the U.S. Geographical Survey, and wrongly identified it as a Colorado River cutthroat trout. Other scientists collected it from the White Mountains from time to time, but it wasn’t until a century later in 1972 that the fish was properly recognized as a unique species and assigned its current scientific- (Oncorhynchus apache) and common names. A year later it was placed on the endangered species list. Places everywhere have their scars, and the White Mountains are no exception. The loss of habitat from excessive timbering and grazing and the introduction of non-native trout species were detrimental to the native Apache trout. High sedimentation during the spring run-off affected trout reproduction; fine sediments clogged porous gravel beds where oxygen-rich water should percolate over incubating eggs. Over the last 75 years, through the actions of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, followed by work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), U.S. Forest Service, and Arizona Game and Fish Department, Apache trout populations have rallied. The future looks sunny for the species; it could be the first sport fish to be recovered and removed from federal threatened or endangered species protection. Conservation work continues. Cattle have been fenced out of select Apache trout streams within the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest and along streams within the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. Non-native sport fishes are no longer stocked near Apache trout waters. Alchesay-Williams Creek National Fish Hatchery, located on the reservation, continues to raise Apache trout for sport fishing. Apache trout from the federal fisheries facility are stocked on the reservation and they are shared with the Arizona Game and Fish Department to be stocked in neighboring national forest waters. Many streams are open to anglers. The Service’s Arizona Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office (FWCO) biologists remain shin-deep in Apache trout work, striving toward that goal of recovering the threatened species. They expend a great deal of energy removing non-native brown trout and brook trout from Apache trout waters. They accomplish this with backpack-mounted electrofishing gear where the unwanted fish are stunned and netted from high mountain streams. A new technology known as environmental DNA (eDNA) guides their work. Fish shed skin cells and of course eliminate bodily waste into the water, which then contains the animal’s DNA that can be detected in the water. Biologists from the FWCO and tribe collect stream water from several sites over long reaches, and pass the water through filters that are analyzed by U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station. These lab results then identify those stream sections that contain the unwanted non-native trout. Periodic population monitoring continues, as does barrier monitoring. Where unwanted non-native fishes occur downstream, constructed barriers keep those below at bay, and the pure Apache trout populations protected above. Constructed barriers now exist on 23 creeks. At present, Apache trout exist in 28 populations and swim in 170 miles of streams. The lot of Apache trout has changed significantly. In a relatively brief period the species has emerged from anonymity and mistaken identity to the point when the White Mountain Apache Tribe stepped up to protect their trout. It’s now the official state fish of Arizona and a favorite among anglers. For more information contact: Craig Springer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Southwest Region, Albuquerque, New Mexico. www.fws.gov/southwest

The Inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic Salmon were declared endangered in 2003. Of the more than 40 rivers that were home to the species, mostly have none now.

The Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association’s (CIAA) board of directors has decided to proceed with caution. It will reduce the number of pink salmon planned for release in the spring from its Tutka Bay Lagoon Hatchery. The hatchery is located on a lagoon connected to Kachemak Bay which lies within Kachemak Bay State Park.

The reliable production of high quality offspring is paramount for successful aquaculture. This is true for both a shift from quantity to quality in established species as well as for closing the lifecycle of new candidate species. High mortality rates can occur in hatcheries if abiotic and biotic conditions are not within tightly framed optima, which is a consequence of the reproductive strategy of many teleost fish species.

A probiotic supplement that boosts the survival of oyster larvae exposed to pathogens is now ready for commercialization.

FloatPac, owners of FishPac live seafood transportation systems, have announced the first successful shipments of live salmon parr fingerlings (Salmo salar), from Scotland to Dubai.

AquaTactics Fish Health has a new addition to its team of fish health experts. Dr. Kyle Farmer is the company's new veterinarian and professional services manager, providing fish health consultation and fish health medicine support to public stock enhancement facilities and private aquaculture clients, both nationally and internationally, the company said.

Earlier this year BernAqua announced that it had received organic certification for some of its hatchery feed products. Based in Belgium, BernAqua specialises in advanced nutrition and environmental solutions for hatcheries.

The team at Innovaqua, a Spanish company specialising in aquaculture technology, is responsible for the design and manufacture of the Mirafeed system.

Global fish feed producer BioMar is investing to increase production of fry and RAS feeds at its factory in Denmark, following an upward trend in the company’s sales volumes.  

Evonik, one of the world leaders in specialty chemicals, has launched a new software tool that gives amino acid recommendations for optimizing tilapia feed. AminoTilapia was built following a factorial modelling approach and allows users to optimize amino acid regulations for different growth stages of tilapia, by simulating different production scenarios.

The 2018 Global Aquaculture Innovation Award has announces it is now accepting applications for the sixth annual competition.

Aquacultural engineers Paul Hundley and Maddi Badiola recently announced the formation of HTH aquaMetrics llc , with offices in Hiawassee, Georgia, USA and Getxo Biscaye, Basque Country, Spain. HTH aquaMetrics llc is a recirculating aquaculture planning, design and consulting firm that provides technical and due diligence assessment services for aquaculture system and facility investors, owners, managers and operators. According to a press release from the company, the basic premise of aquaMetricsTM is that there are distinct, measurable characteristics that can be analyzed to determine the chemical, physical and biological traits of an existing or proposed aquaculture system. “These traits,” notes the press release, “when accurately measured can be analyzed to define material condition of existing systems and the operational performance capability of existing or proposed systems. Material Condition refers to mechanical and electrical integrity and reliability. Operational Performance refers to process, ecological and economic inputs, outputs and efficiency.” These conditions and capabilities relate to the economic value, environmental impact, and opportunities for improving an integrated production facility. For additional information go to: www.HTHaqua.com

The Wilsgård Offshore Tank Fleet (OTF) is a barge-based smolt production concept under development by Norway’s Wilsgård Fiskeoppdrett AS for use in Norwegian fjords. A key part of the design is a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) explains managing director Fredd Wilsgård. “The OTF is 100% closed and has no emissions. That means that we clean all the water that comes in and we clean all the water that goes out.” By cleaning the water that comes into the OTF, no unwanted organisms (bacteria, sea lice, etc) enter the production system. Also, the production water is cleaned and sterilised before it leaves the system. And it’s 100% secure against escapes. One of the goals of the OTF is site area optimization. Since the OTF cleans water coming in and going out of the system, it will neither be affected by nor affect the environment. As Wilsgård points out, “this means that you can establish larger OTFs, more OTFs and that they can be located in the same fjord. If you look at traditional area use at a site, 200 × 600 metres, you can place six OTFs in such an area and deliver large smolt at up to 70 traditional concessions.” The OTF is designed to take on fry at 30–40 grams and rear them to 500 grams before the fish are transferred to traditional fjord-based cages for a period of about 12 months. Since the OTF takes fry into production, the area required on land is also significantly reduced. The company has applied for eleven development licenses, with a total maximum allowed biomass of 8580 tonnes for the OTF.