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Recirc at Sayward North Proving itself in Early Days

February 4, 2011

Filed under: Touring Our Business,What We Do — Tags: ammonia, bioreactors, Dean Guest, Denmark, feeding, first system in North America, freshwater operations, Freshwater Production Manager, Gina Forsyth, InterAqua Advance, January 2011, lake-based hatchery, New Year, nitrates, north america, November, peak biomass, sayward north, smolting — marineharvestcanada @ 10:42 am

Since the last update in the February newsletter, Phase I of the new recirculation unit at Sayward North (SN) has begun operation. Fish were stocked to the system during the first week of November.

Introduced gradually over several weeks as the bioreactors reached peak efficiency. The bioreactors convert ammonia, which is toxic to fish, into safer nitrates and also “eats” fine organic solids while removing excess carbon dioxide.

Total water use at SN will eventually decrease by as much as 2/3 from current levels as the remaining flow through systems are converted to or replaced by additional recirculation systems.

Dean Guest, Freshwater Production Manager, said that the first group of 600,000 smolts produced in the new system should be ready for delivery to site in January 2011. “Our expectation is that this system will more than meet our needs,” he said. The key to any successful recirc operation is the ability of the system to maintain stable water chemistry, temperatures,oxygen levels, as feed rates and biomass change.

The system will be able to consistently provide a high standard of water quality throughout the production cycle including times of peak biomass & feeding and the “smolting” process leading up to transfer to sea.

This will help us produce smolts of a consistently high quality from September through May Dean commented. “In our opinion InterAqua Advance has the best technology available”. The company, based in Denmark, has a patent on their recirculation system’s design.

When asked why Marine Harvest has chosen this time to take such significant steps forward,Dean commented that “we needed to end the lake production of smolts in order to decrease potential fish health issues. This investment in our freshwater operations is a key way to increase both smolt size and quality while at the same time reducing environmental concerns”. Two out of the three company’s lake-based hatchery sites are already closed.

The second phase of work is scheduled to begin before the New Year. Four additional tanks and a second bioreactor system will be installed in the same building. Sayward North represents InterAqua Advance’s first system in North America.

By Gina Forsyth

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Recirculation innovation at Sayward North

February 25, 2010

Filed under: Sustainability,What We Do — Tags: ammonia, carbon dioxide, Danish, Denmark, Freshwater, FW technical Operations Manager, InterAqua Advance, marine harvest canada, MHC, north america, organics, Phillip Redmond, recirculation, sayward north — marineharvestcanada @ 1:18 pm

It is an exciting time in MHC Freshwater. Construction has begun on Sayward North’s new turnkey recirculation system provided by InterAqua Advance from Denmark. This will be the first of their systems in North America. Work began with falling the trees, removing the stumps and scraping off all of the organic layer. The next step involves excavating the site to the base of the footings and tanks to begin the concrete work and the installation of the pipe work. Construction of the building is scheduled to begin the middle of March with the completion of the first system by July 1st.

The new building will house two separate systems each designed to recirculate an incredible 99.1% of the water. Each system will contain four 12m tanks which will flow into a treatment facility with two 4m deep bioreactors which are the heart of the InterAqua Advance system designed to convert toxic ammonia into safe nitrate, digest fine organics, degas off excess carbon dioxide and saturate the water with oxygen, exciting isn’t it! The water is then pumped back to the tanks with a small side stream of the water being supersaturated to help meet the oxygen requirements of the fish.The existing Hatchery uses approximately 15,000 Lpm of water to produce 1.8 million smolts. The new recirculation systems will triple the smolt production of the site using only an amazing 600 Lpm of new water while increasing smolt size and quality at the same time.

We look forward to continuing to work together with our Danish colleagues to make this project a success. We are all eager to have the project progress to the operational phase with the first fish scheduled to be added to the system already being first fed in the Hatchery. Between now and then, there is a lot of work to be completed but there’s no turning back now!

By Phillip Redmond, FW Technical Operations Manager

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Phase One Recirculation Flourishing at Dalrymple Hatchery

December 10, 2008

Filed under: What We Do — Tags: ammonia, aquaculture, atlantic salmon, Big Tree Creek, british columbia, broughton, Campbell River, Cyrus Rocks, darymple, Fish Farm, Freshwater, hatchery tour, Larsen Island, moving bed, nitrate, Orca Chief, Project Management, recirculation, smolt, technology, water treatment — marineharvestcanada @ 10:27 am

First was the installation of Dalrymple Hatchery’s new recirculation system followed by staff training and now the first fish produced by the system are thriving in the Campbell River South and the Broughton areas. This initiative represents a number of significant milestones for Marine Harvest.

Jamie Gaskill, Production Director, said recently that this system represents phase one of a four year freshwater management plan. Both Dalrymple and Big Tree Creek Hatchery will be expanded under this regimen. At its conclusion, both facilities will be able to produce four million smolts each by 2012 using recirc technology.

“These fish (from Dalrymple) are the first benefits we’ve reaped through the moving bed technology”, added Gaskill. Moving bed technology is a newer style of water treatment for the conversion of ammonia to nitrate.

Also noteworthy in this endeavor is the successful use of the Project Management style of planning spearheaded by Dalrymple Manager Craig Schelter and Philip Redmond, Freshwater Technical Operations Manager.

Developed by Priority Management, a workplace skill development company, the key is starting with both the deadline and end product in mind. From there, the project is “worked backwards” until reaching the initial task while assigning a deadline for each one. This method clearly shows how being late on one task can cause numerous tasks to fall behind.

“The contractor was involved up front with our plan and helped with the budget and timeline. Without the planning the project would not have finished on-time and under budget”, said Schelter.

And naturally smolt quality is a most important component of the entire picture.

“We recently shipped our first group of smolts from this system and they were some of the nicest quality produced in the Freshwater Department. The fins were in excellent condition and the size was right on budget”, said Phillip Redmond.

Manager Len Wells agrees. His Larsen Island site received 300,000 smolts during the third week of October. “These are awesome, big, healthy fish with extremely low mortality”, he enthused.

This positivity about the Dalrymple fish was echoed by Jeanine Siemens, Manager of Cyrus Rocks, which took delivery of 125,000 smolts.

“The fish entered well and grouped up right away”, Siemens said, adding that the move to the site “went like clockwork”, a testament to both the Cyrus site staff, who did an excellent job, and the Orca Chief crew, who paid a great deal of attention to the many details.

Benchmarking, both internally and with an outside company, hasn’t been overlooked either.

Schelter remarked, “If we don’t know how we are doing not only against ourselves but others we have no measure where we sit… we grew larger, better quality fish, cheaper and easier than before and we have data to prove that so we know the project was successful.”

“You have to know where you are to know where you want to go”, he observed. Clearly where this innovative technology is headed, backed by a team of committed employees, is in the right direction.

By Gina Forsyth

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