The Daily Banner
September 3, 1999
By Jaime Roe
Continued from Aquaculture Tanks in the News – Part 1
“I invested much time and money in the project in the beginning If the fish died, I had to examine the design of the system to determine what was wrong and make changes,” Mr. Sheriff said. “It takes six months for the system to run to determine if it will work, and then the changes have to be made, and the process starts over.”
He invested nearly $750,000 dollars in Delmarva Fisheries including costs for the land, building, tanks, fish and supplies. In two years, Mr. Sheriff expects to receive the money back that he has invested by grossing between $450,000 – $500,000 per year.
The fishery requires little maintenance, such as cleaning the filters, filling the automatic feeders and sizing the fish for sale.
“Determination and investment money are the two main requirements for beginning a fish farm,” added Mr. Sheriff.
After obtaining a patent on his system, Mr. Sheriff began marketing his innovation under the name of Opposing Flows Technology. The manufacturing of the systems is performed at his business in Federalsburg.
Mr. Castle also encouraged him to begin selling the systems to boost the aquacultural industry. “It was not my intention to sell the tanks, only the fish, but it became a side business nearly two years ago,” Mr. Sheriff said. “The Department of Aquaculture refers people to me who are interested in beginning their own fisheries.”
He has built 60 tanks so far, constituting an average of ten farms sold in Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Mr. Sheriff worked as an engineer for the University of Maryland the 1980s. From there he became an industrial fabricator. Most recently, he was a Project Engineer for the W.R. Chemical Co. in Baltimore. He resides in Kent Island and commutes to Dorchester County.
“Delmarva Fisheries has exceeded my expectations, and I am pleased with the way things are going. Both the tanks and the fishery are nice businesses,” Mr. Sheriff said. “Those in the aquaculture industry are not really farmers, we are entrepreneurs.
This series of posts will highlight some of the new stories about our aquaculture tanks. The first article comes from the September 3, 1999 “Daily Banner” by Jaime Roe.
HURLOCK—With the uncertain future of the seafood industry, many measures have been taken to preserve the heritage and the availability of seafood. Aquacultural farming is one of the measures taken to ensure a fish harvest. Delmarva Fisheries of Hurlock is owned by Rick Sheriff, and is one of the few fish farms in Maryland.
On Mr. Sheriff’s farm, various fish are harvested, including large-mouth bass, tilapia hybrid blue gills and yellow perch which are all sold as food fish. Yellow perch is mainly carried to the Great Lake region near Ontario, where it is the predominate fish harvested from Lake Erie. The other fish are sold to the Asian market around China Town in New York and in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Sheriff said, “When I began growing fish, there were only three other fish farms in Maryland, each with a different technological system.”
In 1990, he began researching the aquacultural industry after being prompted by a friend, Maryland State Director of Aquaculture Roy Castle. In an attempt to save the seafood industry and heritage of Maryland, the Department of Aquaculture was developed as a subsidiary of the Department of Agriculture.
“Roy and I have been friends for years, and he sparked my interest in the industry,” Mr. Sheriff said. “Roy built and promoted the growth of the industry in Maryland, and if not for him, there would not be a fish farm in the state.”
After researching the industry, Mr. Sheriff entered the extensive and expensive trial – and – error period until 1995 when he developed the system he uses today. The system is operated by two opposing flows of water and the tanks are made of marine-grade aluminum. The tanks can hold 12,000 gallons of water and 5,000 pounds of fish each.
There are some key elements that need to be considered before getting started. The first thing that needs to be looked at is the water supply and discharge. You are going to be moving large quantities of water. Where is all the water coming from, a well or some other source? What is the quantity available, are permits required? Then after the water is used, how can it be disposed of, (i.e. sewer system, spray irrigation, storage ponds)?
Next, consider the property location. What climate zone is the property in, and how will that affect the species to be raised. For example, you would not want to try and raise a cool water species like yellow perch in a hot zone of the country like Texas. The cost of cooling all that water would greatly affect the business’s profitability. A better choice would be red drum, which is a warm water species.
What about the market for the given species? Where is this market at, how large of a volume is moved and at what price? Generally, the farther the farm is away from the market the lower the farm price will be.
After you have identified your species you need to find a reliable source of fingerlings for grow out or a separate hatchery on site to produce your own.
Once you have answered these questions you have to decide what type of aquaculture you would like to do, outside ponds, flow through, or recirculating. Generally speaking, out side ponds safely do 5000 pounds to the acre of water, so a million pound farm would require 200 acres of water or about 300 acres of land. This is a very expensive way to with land cost, the building of levees, large wells, underground plumbing, etc. Flow through systems require some sort of containment in conjunction with very large pumps to move the water. The water also need to be enriched with liquid oxygen. This is a very expensive system to operate costing well over a dollar per pound of fish to produce. Recirculating systems have the lowest capital cost of the three. They also have the lowest operational cost. The same one million pounds of fish can be raised in a one-acre building. They also require less water. The same one million pounds of fish per year in a pond system would use 264 million gallons, in a flow through system it would use sixteen billion gallons, a recirculation system would use seven million gallons per year. Recirculation systems are the greenest and most profitable way to produce fish and here at Aquaculture Tanks we can provide you with everything you will need to get started fish farming.