Recirculating aquaculture at Uarah Fisheries
At Uarah Fisheries, we favour the use of recirculating aquaculture for the grow-out of Murray cod juvenile fish to market size. The premise of recirculating aquaculture revolves around the key feature of recirculating the water in the aquaculture system. That is, water is continually recycled and reused in a recirculating aquaculture system. To maintain the quality of the water, recirculating aquaculture utilises a number of processes to filter, treat and oxygenise the water so that it can be reused.
Thus, in essence, a farmer using recirculating aquaculture is responsible not only for taking care of the fish, but quite literally the water as well. Where conventional aquaculture systems would simply discard wastewater and replace it with additional river water, recirculating aquaculture involves the control and maintenance of water quality and fish health down to the minutest details so as to minimise and treat waste, and retain as much water to be reused as possible.
Moreover, the benefits of recirculating aquaculture go far beyond the substantial water savings for the environment and the farmer. Recirculating aquaculture is synonymous with greater control over water environment parameters including temperature, oxygen levels and acidity, increased automation, scalability, minimisation and control of pests and the ability to promptly isolate and quarantine infections. These advantages, when combined with fish husbandry knowledge and experience, will almost always lead to superior water quality, healthier fish, faster growth rates, an all-year production cycle and, perhaps unexpectedly for those outside the industry, better-tasting fish, due to strict quality controls and the minimisation of stress placed on the fish.
However, even considering all of the above advantages, perhaps the most industry-defining feature of recirculating aquaculture is its adaptability to a multitude of environments – so as long as a modest but reliable supply of high quality water is present.
Although we, at Uarah Fisheries, are blessed with generous access to land and high-quality water deposits, it is possible for those without these ideal conditions to use recirculating aquaculture to raise Murray cod to a very good quality.
That is, even farmers in arid or urban environments, or even based abroad, can raise Murray cod in a recirculating aquaculture system. This is critical, as recirculating aquaculture thus presents a convincing solution to the major contemporary environmental issues of water depletion, water pollution and rampant commercial overfishing. Likewise, recirculating aquaculture presents a major opportunity for forward-thinking farmers to be first-movers to produce a new fish product in their market.
These numerous and critical advantages of recirculating aquaculture are all factors that drive our vision of spreading Murray cod aquaculture all around the world. Collectively, they open the possibility of Murray cod farming in almost any region, environment or country.
Indeed, we have been directly involved in spreading Murray cod aquaculture overseas with a number of joint venture projects being started since 2015. These projects are conducted with overseas investors and aim to directly supply to foreign markets.
We have also regularly supplied premium quality fingerlings to overseas farms since the 1980’s, These include farms from the Middle East, South East Asia and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.
Therefore, the recirculating aquaculture system is perhaps the aquaculture system that is most in line with our definition of the modern Murray cod farm as an efficient, environmentally-sustainable, scalable and highly-automated farm that can be controlled to ensure a premium-quality product. Even with its significant overhead costs, recirculating aquaculture is seen by many in the industry as the aquaculture system of the future, or perhaps, even the system of today – as we have long believed.
