
The Future of Fish Farming May Be Indoors - extarial
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-future-of-fish-farming-may-be-indoors/
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quietriot
I'm passing this along from Michael Timmons mentioned in the article, a former
professor of mine.

"""

Hello everyone (I was quoted in the article). The use of the term 'indoor' is
actually not relevant. A RAS can be located indoors or outdoors. The key on
the RAS is that the water is recycled (in a loop) that returns 99% of the
water to the system instead of discharging the water from the system into a
receiving body of water (or sewer system). Placing indoors in a 'cold'
environment is beneficial for heat loss control.

HOpe that helps.

MBT (Cornell Univ)

"""

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mawburn
I'm confused why this keeps saying indoor, when it just seems to be talking
about a more modern "raceway" system that has been used since at least the
80's, that I know of. Everything it described sounds exactly like the farm my
dad used to run, except inside. The "indoors" part just sounds like a more
expensive way to do raceways and probably isn't needed in most cases.

Can anyone explain the difference? Or is "indoor" just a buzzword here?

I'm all for more fish farming. Raceways are extremely efficient. During
harvest season we were harvesting around 30,000lbs of hyrbid striped bass
every 2 weeks off half an acre, with just my dad running the farm and me
helping with the grunt work. We also had a few of the unused raceways
dedicated to Tilapia as a side income, which were basically self sustaining
and just needed to be fed. They bred faster than we harvested them.

~~~
Brajeshwar
I'm guessing the implication of "indoor" is that is it climate-controlled, and
external variations of outdoors are reduced entirely or as much as possible.

I'm yet to learn about fish but I know the binary difference of "outdoor" and
"indoor" when it comes to crop farming.

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mabbo
> Water in RAS tanks flows through a bubbling container called a bio-filter,
> in which bacteria consume fish urine and convert it into a form of nitrogen
> that is safe for the fish and environment

I wonder if a system like this might be instead kept clean (in part or full)
with the help of an Aquaponics[0] system. In that design, you filter the water
by growing food hydroponically. The fish waste acts as a nutrient for the
plants, which clean the water for the fish. Food out of both ends of the
equation.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics)

~~~
etrevino
They seem to be combining several steps here (though maybe I'm wrong). In a
comparable aquarium build the bubbling helps to oxygenate the water and to
support the protein skimmer. You have things like bioballs with a large
surface area to contain the bacteria and that acts to process the waste.

But, to answer your question: I think it can probably be done on an industrial
scale. Many larger fish tank setups have refugiums, where the water is
processed. Some people set those up with plants which, in my experience, grow
really well. I've only used underwater plants, but it makes sense that you
could use others.

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beerlord
I find animal farming fascinating because they are basically just miniature
bio-factories - converting feed and other additives into a higher-value food
product. Of course, each different animal converts feed at a different rate of
efficiency and over a different timeframe, in different controlled
environmental conditions.

I think there is a huge appetite out there for tasty, cheap, nutritious food.
Fast food mega-companies are ignoring a huge opportunity here - imagine if
McDonalds (or equivalent) was a food choice your could healthily eat for every
meal? They would be better off thinking as their food as part of daily
nutrition, instead of a meal out. They could adjust their operations and menus
accordingly - with a significant increase in revenue.

~~~
cheeko1234
>Tasty, cheap, nutritious

Pick two.

~~~
pvaldes
You can have the full pack here also. Tasty and nutritious are subjective
terms in any case. The definition of cheap depends a lot on the zone. The same
food can be very cheap in a country and a delicacy in other. Offer and demand.

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Retric
Salmon are predators making the '100 kilograms of fish feed' line misleading.
We basically feed fish to fish.

Resulting in a fraction more fish we like at the cost of vast amounts of fish
we like less.

ex: "Freshwater feeds contain 45–54 percent protein and 16–24 percent lipid."
[http://www.fao.org/fishery/affris/species-
profiles/atlantic-...](http://www.fao.org/fishery/affris/species-
profiles/atlantic-salmon/feed-production/en/)

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jernfrost
I would have been interesting to hear more about ideas for how to feed the
fish. I think a lot of the fish feed today is from land based agriculture
which is not very sustainable.

There has been experiments with using bio reactors to grow algae based food
instead.

~~~
Xt-6
The use of black soldier flies larva could be a sustainable way. The larva are
fed with organic waste, then use as feed
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6u9ZX5ecE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6u9ZX5ecE)

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pvaldes
Replace indoors by closed and you'll have it. Complex systems to maintain at
long term, but we are learning still.

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luisramalho
Sad. The future should be sustainable lab-grown fish meat.

~~~
cageface
Or better still, just get the nutrition you need from plants. There's nothing
essential in fish you can't get from plant sources, with a much lower
environmental footprint.

And before somebody jumps in to say Omega-3, not only can you easily get that
from plants but fish also get it from algae. They don't produce it themselves.

~~~
vram22
>Or better still, just get the nutrition you need from plants.

How about Vitamin B12? This article:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12)

says: "There are no naturally-occurring notable vegetable dietary sources of
the vitamin, so vegans and vegetarians are advised[5][6] to take a supplement
or fortified foods."

There is also this part:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Plants_and_algae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Plants_and_algae)

but who eats much algae, among vegetarians? Wonder if Spirulina is one of
those algae. Need to check. Spirulina as a food supplement is commonly
available in capsule form.

~~~
yesenadam
It's added to all soy milk, far as I know, so personally I've never had to
worry about that, I get B12 with my breakfast cereal.

~~~
beerlord
Along with a huge amount of phytoestrogens from your soy juice :-/

~~~
yesenadam
I didn't remember hearing about those; you say that like it's Bad, well, dark
innuendo at least, beerlord.

A lil while googling about them seemed to say no-one's sure what good or bad
effects they have, if any. And they're in a lot of things:

"According to one study...foods with the highest relative phytoestrogen
content were nuts and oilseeds, followed by soy products, cereals and breads,
legumes, meat products, ...vegetables, fruits, alcoholic, and nonalcoholic
beverages."

And well, Japan has the world's greatest life expectancy doesn't it? And they
have soy everything.

