Our farm in Tasmania
Location:
Abalone Aquafarms was established in 2002, at Stanley, situated on the tip of a peninsula that juts into Bass Strait in far north-western Tasmania.
Tasmania is an ideal place for quality food production and with the areas mild climate of the region, isolation, high quality water and clean atmosphere, Abalone Aquafarms is ideally situated in producing pure, high quality abalone in a sustainable manner.
The Farm:
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With 6,350 sq.m of tank space developed with specialized hatchery, nursery and grow-out, Abalone Aquafarms is a complete, self-sufficient abalone farm with a final production capacity of 80 tonnes of prime abalone for the world market. |
Abalone Aquafarms utilize state-of-the-art, land based, growing systems to provide secure, deep-water tanks in which are placed structures called Abitats® that replicate an ocean reef (as the natural habitat of abalone) to provide an ideal growing environment. The land-based system provides maximum control of the growing environment in terms of feed efficiency, oxygen control, disease management, water flow rates and overall wellbeing of the abalone. The farm has a high tech power supply and alarm system providing power to the four pumps required to circulate large volumes of water around the farm. |
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The hatchery is capable of producing several million larvae for transfer to the nursery where 1.2 million abalone spat will be grown for several months before being placed into the juvenile grow-out tanks. When the spat are large enough they are graded and culled so that only the largest and strongest will continue the journey to harvest.
When the abalones reach 150 grams in weight (about 100mm in length) they are ready to be shipped to the most discerning restaurants in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore and Tokyo.
The Team:
Rod Crowther, MD, 27 years experience in the abalone industry as an abalone diver in the wild fishery, 20 years involvement in abalone processing and exporting, involved in abalone aquaculture for 12 years and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Brian Smith, farm manager, Diploma of Applied Science (Aquaculture), 6 years in rock lobster exporting and 6 years in abalone farm construction and production.
Bruce Murphy, maintenance foreman, former Royal Australian Navy engineer, many years experience on commercial fishing vessels and 6 years involvement in land-based power, pumping and reticulation systems. |
