Fish farmer Osland Havbruk will check whether this is the future of the fish farming business.
The cages are the world’s largest for farming rainbow trout and salmon. Each cage has a circumference of 180 meters and a volume of 30,000 cubic meters. Osland Havbruk is investing EUR 6 million, releasing 200,000 smolts in each and will feed the fish to slaughter size in the two cages.
The company is out early with closed cages and wants to gain operational experience to improve fish health and control of salmon lice. The two cages are located in Høyanger municipality, Western Norway.
Challenge
Four pumps fetch seawater from the lice-free belt at a depth of ten meters.
“When a challenge is solved, others – such as wound problems and gill health – can arise and have to do with colder temperatures. Still, we believe farming in closed systems is the future,” said Andreas Berge, fish health biologist at Osland Havbruk, to Sogn Avis.
Further commitment
General manager Erik Osland is excited about the investment.
“Hopefully we hit our target so that we can use this model further. Now we will operate for a while, and see what experiences we make. Then we will see if this will be a further investment,” Osland says to Firda.
The 300 gram salmon smolt will be ready for harvesting, weighing five kilos, in 14 months.
