Far from Tropics, Idaho Scientists Experiment with Ornamental Fish Farming

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As pollution controls become more stringent and cold-water spring flows decline, aquaculturists in Idaho, the U.S. leader in rainbow trout production at 44 million pounds annually, have seen the value of their trout fall 5 percent to $35.3 million since 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

HAGERMAN, Idaho — It's 20 degrees outside in southern Idaho's dairy country, but 100,000 angelfish swim contentedly in steaming water pumped from hot springs into Ken Ashley's geothermal greenhouse.


"We've done breeding experiments and growth experiments to see what we can profitably produce," said Ashley, who also toys with African cichlids along with the trout and tilapia that are the mainstay of his 6,000-square-foot SeaPac of Idaho fish farm.


As pollution controls become more stringent and cold-water spring flows decline, aquaculturists in Idaho, the U.S. leader in rainbow trout production at 44 million pounds annually, have seen the value of their trout fall 5 percent to $35.3 million since 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.


To help bolster stagnating revenues, University of Idaho researchers at the Aquaculture Research Institute near Hagerman want to raise interest in aquarium fish like the monogamous angelfish pairing in Ashley's greenhouse.


A colorful zebra danio or gourami brings more cash per ounce than rainbow trout, said Ron Hardy, the research institute's director who next year plans to publish a how-to manual to give producers a better idea of how ornamentals can be raised successfully in Idaho.


"They're worth 20 to 50 times what food fish bring per pound," he said. "The economics are there."


Hardy's work with ornamentals is just a sidelight to his main research at the institute's new $3.2 million aquaculture biotechnology laboratory. His scientists study everything from improving grain-based trout feed to replacing dwindling fish-meal supplies to slashing pollutants in trout excrement flowing from dozens of fish farms into the Snake River.


The ornamental industry in Idaho is still tiny, making up less than 1 percent of Ashley's annual revenue.


But Hardy hopes the state can eventually win a larger share of ornamental production now dominated by Florida, which produces $50 million worth of fish annually, or 95 percent of America's domestic supply.


At the Idaho Aquaculture Research Institute's four-acre facility in a little hollow above the Snake River, a garage-turned-greenhouse is home to angel fish, koi, tiger barbs and tetras. It's here that research farm manager Michael Casten steals spare minutes away from raising thousands of trout to work with 70 ornamental species.


"We're just learning how to breed them, how many eggs they lay, how long it takes them to get to market size," he said. "We had one diet that seemed to make them spawn better, or at least more frequently, with more and better eggs. We want to follow up on that."


Ornamental experts say industry newcomers face big hurdles, even though Idaho has plentiful geothermal water that dots the landscape from Yellowstone National Park to the Oregon line.


Imports from countries such as Singapore and Malaysia grew 10 percent in the first half of 2006 to $26.3 million, as lower-cost Asian producers take a bigger bite out of a mature North American industry.


"It's not a golden opportunity just waiting to be plucked," said Craig Watson, University of Florida's Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory director. "It's a global industry with lots of competition, and there are many established players."


It's also a daunting prospect to develop marketing and distribution strategies like those long in place in Florida to get gouramis or swordtails swiftly to pet shops in America's $2.5 billion aquarium industry, said Gary Fornshell, the University of Idaho's aquaculture extension agent in Twin Falls.


"What's really missing is how to pencil it out: Capital costs, production costs, how to market that product -- and what kind of profits you can expect," he said. "Until we have that information, I don't see a lot of people getting into it."


But Leo Ray, considered the father of Idaho's geothermal aquaculture, thinks Idaho has a shot if Hardy's institute becomes the go-to center for data on raising ornamentals in the West's geothermal springs.


"With our water, we could bury Florida," Ray said. "It's an industry waiting for the catalyst to be built."


Source: Associated Press


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