Huon Aquaculture's new underground fish transfer system last week successfully moved around 160,000 fish from the company's nursery into Ronja Storm, the group's massive wellboat.
The underground pipe is around 1,100 meters long and has oxygen injection manifolds visible from above ground.
"Moving our fish this way means less handling, which we believe will result in better fish health and performance following the transition from freshwater to saltwater," said the company in a LinkedIn post.
Huon's AUD 43.7 million (24.5 million/$26.5 million) Whale Point nursery enables it to grow salmon larger on land before putting them to sea, reducing the time the salmon spend at sea from 14 months to around 9-10 months. This, in turn, allows the company to better manage existing leases at sea, enabling longer fallow periods between stocking and separation of year classes, all of which delivers biosecurity and environmental benefits.
Huon transferred the first of these larger smolt to sea cages in July last year.
