Progress 06/01/15 to 01/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience is the management and staff of Dunn's Fish Farms, Inc. The nature of this project is to improve the overall production efficiency of largemouth bass on our farm. The target audience reached by these efforts are management and staff of Dunn's Fish Farms, Inc. These individuals are responsible for the day to day operations of the facility and must integrate these new production techniques and protocols into existing farm operations. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Four management personnel and 16 staff members have gained a working knowledge of Recirculating Aquaculture Systems and the protocols we have established to produce largemouth bass fingerlings in the RAS. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results of the UAPB density and temperature studies have been presented to the larger aquaculture community by Dr. Jeongwan Park at the Aquaculture America 2016 meeting. A manuscript summarizing these results is in progress. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Develop brood-stock acclimation facilities and protocols for the out of season spawning of largemouth bass. The broodstock acclimation facility was completed and is fully functional. Five raceways in an existing hatchery facility were partitioned off and re-modeled into a Recirculating Aquaculture System. This system now has four functioning fish holding raceways that can either be a flow-through system with well water or tied together into a recirculating system. The fifth raceway serves as the return sump and incorporates a rotating drum filter, a moving bed bioreactor, and UV sterilization. Photoperiod can be controlled through timers and water temperature is controlled with a heat pump. Water temperature and photoperiod protocols have been developed and were proven to be effective during the fall of 2016. 2. Determine the most profitable method to culture largemouth bass fingerlings through the winter months. A 25' by 50' section of our existing hatchery facility was enclosed and retrofitted with Recirculating Aquaculture System components. The system is composed of three, 3000 gallon circular tanks, ozone injection, a microscreen drum filter, an existing raceway modified to incorporate a moving bed bioreactor, a degassing aerator, and a pumping station. Each tank is fitted with an oxygen saturation cone and automatic oxygen monitoring and control to maintain optimal oxygen levels. Temperature can be maintained with an incorporated water source heat pump. A series of fingerling growth studies were conducted in this system with our existing raceway system serving as a control. In addition to the work accomplished on site, Dr. Jeongwan Park conducted a series of experiments at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff to determine the optimal density and temperature for largemouth bass fingerlings produced in RAS systems. This information, and the data collected from the on-farm growth studies has helped us produce and fine tune our RAS largemouth bass fingerling production protocols. 3. Conduct an economic analysis (enterprise budget analysis) based on the outcomes of objectives 1 and 2 listed above to compare the overall economic feasibility of out of season production strategies with traditional culture methods. A detailed economic analysis was developed by Dr. Carole Engle to compare the following: 1) Largemouth bass spawning in the spring using traditional practices versus largemouth bass spawning following early acclimation of broodstock; and 2) Winter production of largemouth bass fingerlings in either existing raceways or in a Recirculating Aquaculture System. Enterprise budgeting techniques were used to develop detailed cost estimates of the scenarios for analysis following standardized methodologies (Engle 2010). The first step in the analysis was to develop a complete enterprise budget for the traditional spring spawning system for largemouth bass. The representative hatchery system developed by Stone et al. (2008) was used as the base structure for the traditional largemouth bass hatchery and spawning analysis. This detailed analysis found that the cost to produce 1 million fry (the standardized unit of measurement for the analysis) to be $3,499 for traditional spawning in the spring. Costs to construct the temperature acclimation room to acclimate largemouth bass broodstock for early spawning in the spring were outlined. Necessary equipment included: drum filter, water pumps, heat pump, biofilter, UV sterilizer, demand feeders, and the raceways themselves to hold the broodstock for temperature acclimation. The total investment cost for the acclimation room was $15,420, with annual depreciation of $1,221. Spawning trials in this project resulted in greater numbers of spawns per female brooder in the early acclimation. Thus, fewer females and fewer raceways were needed to produce 1,000,000 fry (the standardized unit of measurement for the analysis) due to the greater number of spawns obtained per female with early acclimation. Broodstock costs per million fry produced were lower because fewer broodstock were needed due to the greater number of spawns per female. Costs to produce 1 million fry from early acclimated broodstock were $1,883. Early acclimation of largemouth bass broodstock resulted in a decreased cost of production of largemouth bass of $1,616 per million fry, a decrease in production cost of 46%. Another detailed analysis was conducted to compare the cost of producing fingerlings through the winter months. Production data from the trials conducted in this study were used, including the weight of fingerlings produced per raceway. Total costs were $3.68 per lb of fingerlings produced in traditional raceways over the winter. The total investment cost for the RAS system was $102,609, with an annual depreciation of $8,280 and an average interest on the investment of $5,131 (accounting for the opportunity cost of the capital used). The quantity of feed fed and the total weight of largemouth bass fingerlings produced from the fingerling production trials conducted in this study were used. The cost to produce largemouth bass fingerlings in a Recirculating Aquaculture System over the winter was $2.30/lb of fingerling produced. The winter production cost of largemouth bass fingerlings in a Recirculating Aquaculture System was $1.38/lb less than the cost of winter production of largemouth bass fingerlings in raceways, a decreased cost of 37.5%. In summary, the cost of winter production of largemouth bass fingerlings was substantially lower in the Recirculating Aquaculture System than in raceways. The cost reduction identified in this study was due primarily to the greater growth rate of fingerlings in the Recirculating Aquaculture System as compared to the growth rate of largemouth bass fingerlings in the raceways. In the Recirculating Aquaculture System, largemouth bass fingerlings grew to 0.0423 lb as compared to a final weight of only 0.012 lb in the raceways, with similar survival. The subsequent greater total weight of fingerlings produced spread the fixed costs associated with the capital investment in tanks and filters across a greater volume of production and resulted in a substantially lower cost per pound of fingerlings produced in the Recirculating Aquaculture System. References Engle, C.R. 2010. Aquaculture Economics and Financing: Management and Analysis. Blackwell Scientific, Ames, Iowa. Engle, C.R. and B. Southworth. 2013. Costs of raising largemouth bass fingerlings. ETB 260, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Stone, N., C.R. Engle, and E. Park. 2008. Production enterprise budget for golden shiners. Southern Regional Aquaculture Center Publication No. 122, Southern Regional Aquaculture Center, Mississippi State, Mississippi.
Publications
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