WaterFarming.com A deep ocean, mid-water farming apparatus, for propagating bi-valves, kelp and sea weed comprising a plurality of air-containing tanks arranged in a frame and including a lower frame element and an upper frame element, a device for anchoring the tanks in deep water and including connectors to connect the anchor to the lower frame element for holding the device in deep water, a plurality of upwardly directed elongated tubular substrates, on which to grow the bi-valves, the substrates arranged about a vertically-oriented center strut, each substrate defined by a first, lower terminal end, for connection to the upper frame element, and a second, upper terminal end, spaced-apart from the first end and, a top hat centered about the strut for connecting to the upper ends of the tubular substrates for holding them in a fixed configuration thereabout.While half the fish on American tables is farm raised, much of it is imported. Fish farms in the United States have doubled in the last 10 years, with most of the salmon, trout, striped bass and catfish coming from land-based farms where regulatory requirements can be more easily controled than in open water.
Flat-fish open-water farming, which counts among its crop flounder, turbot, fluke and halibut, is conducted in Canada, Japan, Norway and Taiwan, said Gregg Rivara, an educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Southold. The agency has been involved with researching and developing mariculture on Long Island.
The process of raising a fin fish for market, from egg to harvested fish, takes 18 months, Mr. Rivara said. The first phase of farming summer flounder requires recovering eggs from wild brood stock. The eggs come from fish caught in the wild. This eliminates the potentially adverse effects that fish bred in captivity that escape to the wild might have on the genetic pool.