Learn · Sustainable Growing
Raising fish is really managing water. Keep the water right and the fish almost raise themselves.
As wild fish stocks shrink, more of our seafood is farmed. Done badly, that means crowded, polluted pens. Done well, it is one of the most efficient ways to produce protein there is. The line between the two comes down almost entirely to the water.
Raising fish well starts with the water. Everything else, the feed, the health, the growth, depends on it.
Clean Water Is the Whole Job
Fish live inside their environment in a way land animals never do. They breathe the water, and their waste stays in it. Manage that water and the rest follows.
- ▸Crowd fish too tightly and their waste fouls the water and breeds disease.
- ▸Clean, oxygen rich water keeps fish healthy with little intervention.
- ▸The waste itself is a resource if you give it somewhere to go.
▶ Watch
Raising fish well starts with getting the water right.
You are not really farming fish. You are farming water, and the fish are how you harvest it. Get that order right and most problems never appear.
Feed Without Robbing the Sea
A common trap is feeding farmed fish on wild caught fish, which just shifts the pressure back to the ocean. Better systems raise fish that eat plants or scraps, or pair them with shellfish and seaweed that feed on the waste and clean the water at the same time.
Efficient When It Is Honest
Fish convert feed into food remarkably efficiently, far better than most land animals, because they do not fight gravity or keep themselves warm. That makes responsible aquaculture a genuinely promising way to feed people, as long as it keeps its water clean and does not lean on the wild ocean to do it.
The takeaways
- →Water quality decides the health and growth of farmed fish.
- →Feed fish on plants or scraps, not wild caught fish.
- →Fish convert feed very efficiently, so honest aquaculture feeds people well.