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January 5, 2009

Open-water fish farming on a roll

By The Mainebiz News Staff

A Portsmouth, N.H.-based company has applied for $135,000 grant from the Maine Technology Institute to begin farming fish off the coast in a unique pen developed by a Maine company.

GreatBay Aquaculture LLC has applied for the MTI money to buy an AquaPod, a 62-foot diameter, 3,250-square-meter geodesic-shaped cage of polyethylene and wire mesh made by Ocean Farm Technologies Inc. of Searsmont, according to The Union Leader. (You can read more about  Ocean Farm Technologies in the March 2008 Mainebiz story, "Gone fishing.")

Powered by electric motors, the cage is designed to allow 25,000 fish to roam ocean waters for 18 months until the fish are ready for market. GreatBay grows Atlantic cod, flounder, black sea bass and Cobia fingerlings for sale to fish farmers in New England, the Southeast, China, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Five years ago it partnered with Cooke Aquaculture Inc. in Sorrento, Maine, to grow 200,000 cod in 65-foot-deep net pens.

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