Maine firm, partners make moveable fish farm for deep-ocean aquaculture

If the seafaring community of Culebra, Puerto Rico, was paying attention last month, they would have been treated to the unusual sight of a 62-foot diameter mesh sphere bobbing through the local waters, moving under its own power.

While the floating geodesic ball of fish may have looked like something out of science fiction, it was actually the test of a new, self-propelled offshore aquaculture cage developed by Searsmont, Maine-based Ocean Farm Technologies Inc. and the MIT Sea Grant Offshore Aquaculture Engineering Center.

The pair, which is also working with Watertown-based Resolute Marine Energy Inc. on ways to power what it calls an Aquapod, hopes its project could spur growth in a young offshore-aquaculture industry that is filled with as much economic potential as it has challenges.

Steve Page, the founder and CEO of Ocean Farm Technologies and a former manager at local fish hatchery Atlantic Salmon of Maine, said the future of aquaculture is in deep-water farming. He emphasized that making the pens as mobile and self-sufficient as possible is a key to the industry’s success.

“(Atlantic Salmon of Maine) went through a lot of challenges, one of them being that we were not able to expand off the near coast because of conflicts with recreational boaters, fishermen and other citizens,” he said.

Offshore aquaculture is also grabbing the attention in the federal government. President Bush recently proposed legislation that would give the U.S. Department of Commerce the authority to set regulations for controlled offshore fish farming, opening areas from three to 200 miles out to fish farms. The legislation is pending before Congress.

A report released last year by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution pegs the worldwide, near-shore aquaculture market at $70 billion, with the U.S. market representing $1 billion.

Offshore automation

Ocean Farm Technologies’ pod has a capacity of 3,250 square meters and is made of unique polyethylene and fiberglass material, which makes it strong (to repel predators) but gives it a buoyancy close to that of water. The eight-person company, which received its initial funding two years ago through grants and loans from the Maine Technology Institute, has already deployed its product without power in Puerto Rico and Panama, and is working on another slated for South Korea. According to Page, the company is also in discussions to place one off the coast of Maine, though that project is still in its earliest stages.

But while the pods have been successful on a limited scale, placing them up to 200 miles offshore holds both logistical and economic problems.

“The goal is a fully automated system,” said Page. “When you’re working in the open ocean, it’s dangerous and expensive to put people out there.”

That’s where Resolute Marine Energy and MIT’s Aquaculture Center come in. Cliff Goudey, the director of the center, hopes to bring mobility to the pods, which will enable them to be moved by remote control from place to place for harvesting, avoiding weather and controlling disease outbreaks.

“This could make offshore fish farming economically viable,” he said, adding that the MIT group has been generating interest in the propulsion system from other cage makers.

And Resolute Marine Energy, which was not part of the Culebra test, is working with the group on another project aimed at using its wave power system as a possible source of electricity for the Aquapod. By providing constant, ecologically friendly power, farmers would be able to monitor oxygen content, temperature and weather conditions from shore, to control feeding evenly and to power the electric motor.

The project is being funded by the three groups involved, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A report commissioned by NOAA released late last month suggested that offshore aquaculture would benefit the U.S. economy, and while the report is light on market numbers, it said offshore aquaculture “shows significant economic potential and good prospects for success in the United States.”

The floating geodesic ball of fish is actually a test of a new, self-propelled offshore aquaculture cage developed by Searsmont, Maine-based Ocean Farm Technologies Inc. and the MIT Sea Grant Offshore Aquaculture Engineering Center.

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Maine firm, partners make moveable fish farm for deep-ocean aquaculture