There is no getting away from it. A medium to large aquaculture operation, using solar heating, offers the best chance of success.
In any new industry, entrepreneurs tend to start small, trying and testing all types of technologies to identify the most effective. In aquaculture, this phenomenon manifests itself as backyard systems, where a wide variance in design and complexity is weighed against cost and economic profitability.
This is unfortunately where the wheels often fall off due to the need for convenience rather than performance. The problem lies in the concept of ‘economy of scale’: any intensive livestock rearing system has to be a minimum size to be sustainable. In intensive chicken production, for example, a 100m-long building housing 15 000 chickens might be an efficient system; trying to raise 10 chickens per square metre in a backyard to be profitable certainly is not. Small, intensive fish-rearing systems are similar.
SMALL CANNOT SIMPLY BE SCALED UP
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