The Hatchery

Our hatchery is located in Upstate New York, 35 miles Southeast of Albany in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. It’s a great place to live. More important to the fish, our well water is pure and ideal for African cichlids. The overall hardness (250 ppm) is below Rift Lake levels, but its buffering capacity is enormous. Our tap pH registers 7.9 and never falls, so it can be used unaltered. We’re thankful and sympathize with our urban friends who must contend with municipal water additions of chlorine, chloramines and who knows what else.

“State-of –the-Art”. Is there a more over-used term in our vocabulary today? Anyway, our hatchery isn’t. I’m sure there is a place for re-circulating systems equipped with every new bell and whistle. Wholesalers who need to stock massive numbers of fish and feed bare maintenance diets benefit from ammonia towers, protein skimmers and batteries of UV lights. For fish farmers these systems have two serious drawbacks. First, they tempt you to over-stock tanks in full reliance on technology. Secondly, the cost of all those water pumps is prohibitive.

So, we power the hatchery with regenerative blowers ( five-½ HP) and airlift filters. We use sponge filters (roughly double the manufacturer’s recommendations) for breeding tanks and under gravels in fry tanks. Over the years we added two pieces of technology that now seem indispensable. The first was a standby generator that kicks on during the too frequent power outages in our area. Later we installed an automatic water changing system that freed us from the drudgery of the siphon and hose.

Visitors often remark that the place looks a lot like their own fish rooms…but on steroids. We have the same pressure treated racks and the same assorted sizes of aquariums. Here the aisles are longer and they fill up a bigger space- nearly 3400 sq.ft. We use tanks from 10 to 125 gallons with the old reliable 29-gallon as the unit for fry raising. Recently we’ve experimented with 500-gallon vats to grow out breeders. Somehow, we’ve managed to stuff over 35,000 gallons of water into the building and it will hold no more.

With a reliance on relatively low-tech filtration, we adhere to a strict maintenance schedule.Under gravel filters do a great job of de-nitrification, but only if they are periodically re-conditioned. If left untended, the gravel surface plugs with detritus and flow-through stops. The same goes for the sponge filters. Water changes go on continuously each day using a pre-set program. While little more than a dribble per tank, it adds up to between 40 and 60% per week. This turnover combined with care of the filters ensures excellent water quality at all times.

Hard work rather than hi-tech is one half of our equation for success. The other is low stocking densities. We try hard not to push the system to its limits. If filter or disease problems do arise, it gives you a buffer zone to make things right. And we’ve learned the hard way that fry stunted through over stocking never really recover. We give them room from day one as wigglers until they’re sold, never going above 2 fish per gallon.

We hope this gives an overview of our operation and an idea of how the fish you might be purchasing have been raised. Please feel free to contact us with any additional questions.