GEOTHERMAL AQUACULTURE
PART ONE
The raising of Aquatic life forms in water that is heated or cooled by energy that is drawn from the earth.
Generally we are referring to drawing water from the earth by means of a pump or natural spring or fissure which is of good a good quality and is at a suitable temperature for growing the organism at an optimal temperature.
My first encounter with geothermal Aquaculture occurred in Idaho in the Cascade mountains.
I had sold some hybrid tilapia to A person who had made a contact with a small group of eager people who wanted to raise tilapia in some mountain springs in or near boise Idaho.
On our first trip to the springs in the mountains took us over roads that were narrow and twisting and when you looked out of the car you could see 100’s of feet down the side of the mountain and you just knew you were going to go tumbling down the mountain to an untimely death.
After hours of twisting and turning going up and down (mostly up) we arrived at what appeared to be a small settlement on the edge of the snake river. Snow was everywhere and covered everything except four or five small ponds which were steaming in the cold air.
There was a pipe leading in to each of the ponds. There was a drain exit at the end of each pond . Warm water “almost hot” water was being piped into each pond an was allowed to spill out at the other end of the pond and join a stream tumbling down toward the Snake river several thousand feet below.
Twin Springs Idaho water warm water kept 85 to 90 degrees by mixing hot water into just the right amount to maintain the temperature at 85-90 degrees F in the ponds.
We could see swarms of colored fish moving around in each pond. They were the f2 and f3 generation of red hybrid fingerlings of hybrid breeders that I had sold to a guy named Sandy Harris down at piney point in Palmetto Florida some months earlier. Here we were thousands of feet above sealevel in the mountains of Idaho with an air temperature of -10 to 20 degrees farenheight (below freezing) and there were our beautiful hybrid tilapia swimming eagerly around each pond waiting to be fed. The temperature in each pond was kept warm by the influx of hot water from 2 geothermal springs (twin springs) which was let into the ponds at just the right rate to maintain the temperature. When they had a real cold spell they went to the warm water source and turned up the flow to match
Here it was . right in front of us, the gift of a gracious lord, all the warm water we wanted free for the taking and my fish were loving it!!! There was of course a long history of building and preparing the ponds for this momentous event, and I was eager and excited to hear the details.
Here was a Basically tropical fish bred in Florida and transported to a totally inhospitable enviournment and they were literally thriving.
And so began my love affair with geothermal water which still exist today on this bitter cold day in Florida.
We, Jan and I were put up in a comfortable room, (heated by geothermal water of course) and invited to go skinny dipping in the geothermal pool later. We were told “clothing is not allowed in the pool, ” but Jan said (to me ) she would be wearing a bathing suit, which I relutently agreed with and we put on our swimming clothes, wrapped hugh towels around us and headed out to the pool.
Turned out that we were not the only ones “dressed” Almost everyone else was dressed, I think. Any way the girls all were dang it!
The next morning we were shown the breeders and how they bred them and let them incubate them in their mouth and then caught them as day old fry and counted them into lt the growing or sizing area. They simply exploded from day one and almost appeared to be growing while they were watched.
Of course at 95 degrees which is where they were able to keep them in the pure geothermal water they were growing at full capacity and were exhibiting the incredible growth rate that these hybrids always seem to show at that temperature
We were told that after a few weeks in the nursery ponds where they grew to a half pound, they were then collected and moved to a larger pond and were stocked at a reasonable density and fed two or three times a day on purina trout chow, which I also suggest as the best choice of feeds. that was readily available from their feed supplier. They were harvesting them and selling them in their restaurant beginning at about four months.
After we left “shangri la,” which was my name for this incredible spot nested in the mountains of Idaho.
We proceeded down the same windy treacherous road that took us to Boise, Idaho. We had several meetings in Boise with a local group of growers who each had a one or two lakes where their geothermal water was put into the ponds to cool down to allow enough heat to escape so that the temperature of the water low enough, around 80 degrees farenheith or lower. In the winter they had very little difficulty cooling water down to 60 to 70 degrees f. and could easily keep the water temperature of 85 to 90 degrees F.
It turned out that Many farms had deep geothermal wells, wells dug by the national energy administration which was done under NOOA to find out just how many geothermal well could be drilled across idaho.
Before they were finished they had punched out over 1,800 geothermal wells between New york state to Washington State. The wells varied in temperature from 100 degrees up to 300 degrees.
The farmers mostly used the wells to create usable water for cattle and domestic use, showers, baths, drinking etc.
To use the water it had to be brought to a lower temperature and so every farmer had ponds varying in size from 1/4th acre up to 20 acres.
The larger ponds were just fed water coming out of the hot wells at a rate that allowed the water to cool by the time it was used for domestic purposes.
A guy from Florida organised a group of the farmers got some (20 or 30 of them and got some interested investors to put up money and fix up a farm in Eagle Idaho where they attempted to breed Giant Fresh Water shrimp by the name of Machrbracheum Rosenbergi and distribute them to the farmers.
A group of people spurred on by an individual who had gotten the aquaculture bug and had come up with a plan to grow of all things macrobrgium rosenburgi in the geothermal heated ponds.
Unfortunately that did not work out either because the hatchery people could not breed them or because the territoriality limited the number of shrimp they could raise because mature Shrimp which were 6 to 12 inches long at maturity (market size) require a physical territory of one square yard at maturity. Since there were only just over 5,000 square yards in an acre and there were 10 shrimp to a pound that meant that an acre could only produce around one hundred pounds to the acre, which was not enough to make a living to grow them. The whole idea demonstrated why people who have good intentions and try a new venture without knowing enough about the basic biology and growth requirements of the species of aquaculture animal can get themselves out on a limb.
I ha looked at the idea of growing Machrobracheum when I first got started with tilapia in Palmetto, but got 8 breeders, put two in each of four 50 gallon tanks, turned off the light and went out away for the weekend. When we returned There were only four shrimp. We searched everywhere and could not find the missing four shrimp. We called Hawaii and we told our story and the guy who sent us the shrimp laughed (not funny) and explained that f we were gone a few days that the shrimp usually moult after a long trip and whoever moults first is dinner for the one that has not moulted and since the moulted skin is soft the Un-moulted shrimp simple eats the shed skin and all of the other shrimp, leaving no trace that it was ever there. Since the square feet in an aquarium is well under a square foot that made the shrimp even more aggressive, and since they were in a tank with under a square yard the We considered the fact that the Un-moulted shrimp would always be able to eat the soft shelled one.
Sincerely,
Mike Sipe
Geothermal Aquaculture part 2
Before we left Twin Springs we asked if they would like it if we decided to come to Idaho and set up a fish farm.
This announcement did not seem to bother them and they appeared to be somewhat interested in that option.
On the way back to Boise we asked what other activities were going on in Aquaculture in Idaho.
We were told that a group of people spurred on by an individual who had been bitten by the aquaculture bug and had come up with a plan to grow of all things, macrobrgium rosenburgi, which is about as tropical as you can get.
Any way I had called a Real Estate broker in Boise, and asked if they had any properities for sale or rent that had a geothermal well on it.
Lowe and behold the broker we called told me that e had a fish hatchery for sale, and would put me together with the owner if I liked it. He said it was way out iear Eagle, Idahoe which was about an hours drive from Boise and if I wanted to see it he would arrange for me to meet te owner and he would go to the farm and show it to us. Iasked him if he would go ahead and contact the owner and see when he could meet with us. We waited for about fur hours and the Real Estate guy called us back at our hotel room and said that the owner could meet us the next day at aroud 11 am at the Realators office. I of curse was estatic and agreed to meet with him.
The next day we went to the realotors office and were introduced to the owner who it turns out sold the farm to the previous owners, who had turned the facility into a Shrimp Hatchery to hatch and grow Machcrbracheum Rosenbergi, but when they hit the wall of losing all of there support due to the low yields of the shrimp.
So He was the original owner and the Shrimp guys were the byers who had failed at starting an aquaculture industry around Giant Shrimp.
We drove for what seemed an eternity through the ugliedt terrain with only dried up grass and bushes, but the actual trip only took about an hour and a half.
When we finally got to the farm it appeared to be only a relativly small brck building with a small pond behind it betwee n the building and the Snake river, which was a dropoff tat went down at an angle of80 degrees for about 200 yards to the rivers edge.
The building had a big rusted 10 inch steel pipipstanding abo six feet above the ground about a ten inch pipe sticking into the soil. We were tld that the pipe we were told had hot water coming up out of the ground around to thousand feet.
The well was Artesian and had a flow rate of around 500 gallons a minute of clean safe water that was 185 degrees and a pressure of 90 pounds per square inch. coming up out of the rock “soil.”
The gentleman hen said that the water had to be dripped into the aquariums and tanks at a very low flow rate so that the temperature would not go above 90 degrees farenheight.
We were shown into the building where we saw about 120 Aquariums on steel stands in rows about 18 feet wide in rows that had the aquariums four tanks high. there was about 30 inches between the stands of aquariums that were about 18 feet wide.
The tanks had poly tubing from an air pump tha were hooked up with t’s and valves on the end of esch tube to control the anount of air that went into each aquarum and another set of poly tubes with valves on each end that were set to drip water into each tank at a rate that maintained the 90 degrees F.
Ther were four concrete vaults that were at one end of the buiding These were around 300 gallons each and were each plumbed with a drain and a small plastic pipe with a twist valve that coulb be closed or opened for whatever temperature was wanted.
Then outside lined up in a row wer 8 fiberglass tanks which were also plumbed with incoming warm water also valved and out going drain pipes that drained into a small ditch which ran between the tanks and the drop to the river.
In short it was a geneticist wet dream.
My mind was racing and I could envision breeding up to five generatios a year in the warm aquariums. harvesting the fry from the mothers mouths and moving them to an empty aquarium.
I saw the The (in my mind) growning enough in a week to be able to stock them into a race way and in just a few days see them become fertile young females for the next generation.
I could envision improving my genetic work by 50% with up to 6 generations a year and therefore improving my gene line like lightening.
I knew then that I wanted this hatchery
On the way back I asked the owner if he would consider some sort of lease.
And he said he would think about it and call me the next day.
When Jan and I got back to the motel we were staying in we of course began discussing the pros and cons of making such a move
Of course having seen how fast the Tilapia grew in the geothermal water in Shangrilar I was very eager to see if we could strike some sort of a deal with the owner and move to Idaho.
Related Posts
- Yearly production of tilapia in ponds ranging from 1 acre to 1/30th of an acre.
- MIKE SIPES SIMPLE ONE ACRE INTENSIVE SYSTEM or “SIPE’S SIMPLE SYSTEM”
About the author
MIKE SIPE
I am 70 as of August 4th 2010. I have spent over 41 years Breeding tilapia, improving tilapia gene lines creating Red tilapia, and improving the body form of "pennyfish" from 24% in 1963 to 50% in 2009. I have pioneered and installed high oxygen intensive aquaculture production systems. We (TILAPIA AQUACULTURE INTERNATIONAL) built the first u-tube used to control oxygen and co2 levels in aquaculture. We can dissolve up to 800 parts per million parts of water and thereby control oxygen levels in growing situations. ( THIS IS WHAT MAKES OUR INTENSIVE CULTURE SYSTEM WORK SO WELL) We have designed hatchery systems to produce thousand of pennyfish fingerlings a day using breeder cages. We have helped to establish the production of over two billion pounds per year of our tilapia in over 50 locations in North America, Mexico, South America, Central America, Kenya Africa, and Saudi Aribea in the Middle east. Our goal is to help people with the production of tilapia necessary to *feed everyone* in the world a well balanced nutritious* diet, and to restore the forest of the world. If you wish to talk with me my phone number is 877 217 7006. Please feel free to call me during normal Eastern daylight times. At this particular time I believe that I have more hands on experience in building , designing and running u-tubes to lower the cost and risk for growing all kinds of Aquaculture by 10% - 20% and the cost of dissolving oxygen in an intensive system by 50- 85%. The safety issue is by far the most important issue because having complete control over the oxygen level in a tank helps to assure he safety of the crop and the cost. Another area where I have extensive experience is on what is required to create new characteristics in a gene line. We can take a tilapia that is black and turn it to a brilliant red or take a gene line and select for various body form changes or various internal genetics needed needed to manufacture certain expensive biochemical products..such as Heparin which is an important molecule in haemoglobin that plays a role in clotting blood. A good breeding and selection system could virtually increase the production of almost any biological chemical system in the tilapia.Where Am I:
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