Contact
Steve Page, CEO, Ocean Farm Technologies Inc, 207-322-4322, spage@oceanfarmtech.com

For immediate release

Culebra, Puerto Rico. Ocean Farm Technologies Inc., a Maine company run by a former manager of Atlantic Salmon of Maine, has completed the installation of a new patent pending fish containment system which is expected to facilitate the development of offshore fish farming. Juvenile cobia, a top quality marine species with a rapidly growing demand in the seafood market was stocked today in an Aquapod™ net pen. This wire mesh net pen was recently installed at Snapperfarm, a commercial offshore fish farm in deep water off the island of Culebra, Puerto Rico. The 3250 cubic meter net pen is the second deployment for Ocean Farm Technologies in a line of net pens that will reach 10,000 cubic meters in size.

Steve Page, CEO of Ocean Farm Technologies, says he invented the new offshore net pen after experiencing first hand the decline of the Maine salmon farming industry. “The problems we encountered - including attacks by ocean predators, fish escaping from pens, water temperature injury, disease, and conflict with waterfront landowners - are problems fish farmers are facing around the world,” says Page. “The inevitable worldwide expansion of finfish aquaculture will occur offshore, in deep water. This requires containment systems that will be affordable and also suitable to offshore conditions. This is just the first step for our company in developing technologies that will allow for the growth of offshore aquaculture to meet the growing demand for healthy seafood.”

Brian O’Hanlon, owner of Snapperfarm Inc., says “I have been very pleased with the performance of the Aquapod™ net pen since the installation. We expect the rigid framing will make it easier to install feed systems and to harvest efficiently.” Snapperfarm has been farming cobia since 2002 at their deep water farm site several miles offshore of the island of Culebra, Puerto Rico, supplying quality fish to East Coast markets. Snapperfarm has demonstrated that fish farming at their deep water offshore site has no significant environmental impact on the sea bottom or water quality.

The Aquapod™ containment structure is completely submersible, normally kept submerged at a depth below 6 meters except for routine maintenance, when it can be easily raised above the surface. Unique to this new net pen is marine grade galvanized steel wire netting on modular structural frames constructed of TriMax™, a fiberglass reinforced polyethylene structural lumber. The combination of wire mesh and TriMax™ impart neutral buoyancy to the pen. Testing has also proven that the wire mesh makes the fish containment immune to shark attacks, a considerable problem that has plagued other net pen designs. “I sleep better at night knowing that the Aquapod net pen is predator proof,” says O’Hanlon.