Design of a pilot-scale tropical marine finfish hatchery for a research center at Mazatlán, Mexico

A multispecies, 2668 m2 pilot-scale tropical marine finfish hatchery was designed to fulfill the requirements of finfish juvenile research and development (R&D) at the Research Center for Food and Development, in Mazatlán, México. The main goals of the facility were (1) scale-up and study experimental results at a pre-commercial-scale; (2) assess technical and financial feasibility and improve these technologies before transfer to commercial-scale; (3) adapt technology to other fish species. In the hatchery, a semi-intensive, green water strategy is used for larval rearing, and rotifers are produced using a high density, intensive production technique. An intensive, tank-based nursery is used to study juvenile husbandry. Although the main objective of the facility is to package technology, the annual production capacity for juvenile to supply to industrial partners is about 160,000-200,000 one-gram juveniles produced in three or four rearing cycles. Seawater intake is based on a sand and gravel prefiltered system and two 30 hp seawater radial pumps, each with the capacity to fulfill the whole system requirements (500 gpm, 31 L/s, sustained flowrate). Most of the water is delivered directly to the broodstock and nursery areas after sand and cartridge filtration and a UV lamp (≤60,000 μW s/cm2), and the rest is used to fill four 25 m3 high density polyethylene (HDPE) storage tanks. From the storage tanks, the seawater is directed through three pressurized sand filters and a series of high capacity cartridge filters (16 μm). For live feed production and larval rearing, water is further filtered using line cartridge filters (as small as 0.22 μm) and a continuous-flow UV lamp (≤60,000 μW s/cm2). There is a freshwater system for 60 m3/day and an air distribution system that includes three 10 hp blowers, each with the required capacity for the entire facility. The broodstock areas have 40 tanks (0.6-50 m3) with a total capacity of 410 m3. Initially there are six 3 m3 larval rearing tanks and in a second stage a 40 m3 mesocosms tank facility will be added. The indoor (160 m2) live food culture facility is capable of a daily production of about 8 m3 of four microalgae species (1-40 × 106 cells/ml, depending on the species), 2.5 × 109 enriched rotifers, 6 × 108 enriched Artemia metanauplii and 4 × 107 copepods.