Sisco

Plane, I got it from Scientific American as well as some Advisory Committees I sit on. I will go back and dig up the SA link when I have a little more time. SA published an article on Chinese seafood consumption and Chinese Aquaculture about 6-8 months ago. Here is the link. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-s-fish-farms-could-save-the-oceans/ Mags you are right about traditional aquaculture practices causing inferior seafood. Plane you are right about providing a current in a circular tank leading to improved muscular development as well as better size and health of aquaculture fish. The other key is what you feed them. Traditional fish food has not had a lot of science, research or investigation done on it. Now that is changing, I have seen a lot of requests for support to improve the quality and benefits of aquaculture fish food. Some of the previous studies are showing pretty remarkable results. I have tasted aquaculture Arctic Char that tasted nearly as good as wild caught Lake Trout, a near relative. I also have tasted Saugeye, that was almost indistinguishable from wild walleye. Are they on the same level yet? No. and they might never be. But good aquaculture fish is getting close. I say good because it all depends on the operator and his methods. And when you start talking Chilean raised salmon and steelhead, or even Norwegian and Scottish Atlantic Salmon, They will never be as good a quality as the wild stuff. They also cause a lot of problems as far as disease and pollution. Those Fish Pen facilities are basically ocean CAFO's with the same problems. I was involved in the fight to keep those out of the Great Lakes. Land based aquaculture/aquaponics is the future. Man, you guys made the mistake of getting me on a topic I am passionate about and have done a lot of research on.

To go off thread a bit, Try these numbers on for size: China gets 75% of their seafood from domestic aquaculture, yet China still accounts for harvesting over half the Seafood out of the oceans (55%). And that is only 25% of the seafood they eat! China has over 400,000 ocean going fishing vessels! And no one regulates what they take from the worlds oceans. I doubt they care whether it is irradiated by Fukashima or not. Cut the Chinese harvest in half, and the problem of our oceans being over fished disappears.

Amen on that. There is a lot of that happening around the country. It could change the way we buy vegetables and seafood, and improve the freshness and quality of each. If I find the right situation, I might open an aquaculture facility, as I mentioned above. Aquaculture and aquaponics is the future. Right now China gets 75% of their Seafood from Aquaculture, but you would not want to see the level of sanitation at those facilities. They are working out a system where they raise up to five different species together with one species eating another's feces as a principal food source. Stay away from Chinese raised fish.

I can only speak for Wisconsin and Ohio, as they are the only states I have studied. 800 should not be an issue or much of one. The CAFO issue here has only arisen since the 1990's so it is pretty recent. It is not a question of getting rid of them. It is a question of finding out what to do with the excess manure. Fact is here we are talking those numbers of cows and pigs in these operations.

Doc, that is what dairy farms should be still. Sketch, the problem is not dairy farms. The problem is CAFOs (Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operations) That is where they jam 5000-7000 cows into a single farm where they never see the light of day. The amount of manure pumping out of them is astronomical. One CAFO for 25,000 pigs they want to put near me is going to produce 10 million gallons of pig manure a year. Now manure can be spread on fields as fertilizer, but the standard figure is one cow produces enough manure to fertilize 2.5 acres. Which means each Dairy CAFO needs 15,000 to 20,000 acres to spread it on. In the Fox river basin of Wisconsin alone there are 25 Dairy CAFOs supporting 140,000 cows. There is not 250,000-400,000 available farm acres to spread it. So the extra gets runoff and is befouling the Fox River Watershed. Same thing is causing the Lake Erie Toxic algae bloom. The Sandusky river in Ohio has 50+ CAFO's in it's watershed. What happens is that the excess manure eventually contaminates the groundwater as well and befouls all the wells in the area. Which cuts into available drinkable water, which causes shortages, hence the permits. I am not against CAFO's per se, but if you have read my posts you know how committed I am to the Great Lakes and unfortunately all this stuff ends up in them in the Midwest. There are a lot of smart people trying to figure out solutions. But in the next ten years I think we will be seeing a real shortage of clean water in a lot of the country. This is not a liberal/conservative issue. It is an issue of whether we can afford to be spoil our water and all the health issues it brings with it. A move back to smaller family farms would solve a some of the issue, but I kinda doubt that will ever happen. I sit on two different Advisory Committees that are dealing with this issue and it is a tough one. Wisconsin wants to encourage agriculture, but we need good water as well.

Always double up. This from a guy who has lost 80% of his hearing from noise induced hearing loss. When I was a kid we went to the range and never wore protection. Plus I had jobs in a loud car wash with no protection and ran an unmuffled power auger digging holes for two summers. In retrospect that is my biggest regret in life. 16 inch barrels are by far the worst on high velocity rifles, Especially when you are at the station next to them. I have electronic ones, but I prefer to wear High DB protection traditional over the ear with squishy's underneath. When I shoot my four inch barrel 44 magnum, I can definitely tell the difference between having squishy's and not. And make sure your kids double up as well, it will affect them the rest of their life if they lose part of their hearing. I lost a lot of opportunities in my life because of hearing damage.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/Radiation/FukushimaUpdate/FishandShellfishTesting/Results Disturbing no data since 2014.

R2D2 Gen 2 "B" model, of course.

R2D2 likes Armalites.

OK Mikeddaddy, label which is which.

Sunnys and Blue Gills would be good. I suggest find a restaurant or two that would be interested in buying fresh fish and find out what is most marketable. Good luck I really want to hear more about this. If I lived in a warmer climate I would probably do something like this. I have a friend who has three ponds on ten acres with an artesian well feed that I am trying to talk into setting up an open aquaculture project raising rainbow trout. We could do around 20,000 pounds a year at $8-$10 a pound. In your case, Aquaponics reuse a lot of the water, so it is what you lose by evaporation has to be replaced is all.

Another one https://www.uwsp.edu/cols-ap/aquaponics/Pages/default.aspx Right now the best aquaponic producers are small scale ones that are looking for food self sufficiency and having some extra to market. Up here, we have plenty of water but a short growing season, so recessed in ground green houses are the way to go. In Arizona, water would be the biggest bottleneck,, but your fish growth rates would be phenomenal, as well as a long growing season. Temperatures down there would probably dictate using Tilapia or perhaps catfish, which from clean water are very tasty. In Wisconsin probably Rainbow Trout or Saugeye, a fast growing hybrid of Walleye and Sauger. Taste wise it tastes just like walleye and fetches $15 a pound. Also Arctic Char, which fetches $18 a pound. They are still struggling with adapting yellow perch for aquaculture. An Atlantic Salmon commercial facility just opened down by Eau Claire, Wisconsin. That is pure aquaculture however. Some Atlantic Salmon in a demonstration facility in the pictures below.

Trooper some Wisconsin resources. http://seagrant.wisc.edu/home/Topics/Aquaculture.aspx

I have some knowledge in this area. Aquaponics can work. The bugs as far as making it profitable are still being worked out, but it is the future. Check out this link -the Director is a friend of mine. https://www.uwsp.edu/cols-ap/nadf/Pages/UWSP Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility Home Page.aspx

Yes sir!

Wish I could make it, but I will be in that garden city of America, Detroit.

Switched to Savage for my Bolt guns. Glad I did.

hate flying, the way they treat you now is degrading. Flying back from Portugal with pneumonia was the worst 18 hours of my life. Driving you see some neat stuff, meet some nice people as well.

Just checked out the price of that puppy on the FN website! Still rather have it than a Barrett.

Hemi, suddenly you are a man of few words!

Cash. No possibility of it being taxed.

I have had issues with their game cams. They are on my no buy list since then.

That is one beautiful firearm.

Won't dance with a pole, why not? What is wrong with a pole? Arizona has a lot more progressive laws than I realized.