Shenlan 1

At 2:50 pm on July 2, Shenlan I – China’s first deep -sea fish-farming facility – was put into operation in the Yellow Sea. The move marked the start of the country’s attempts to achieve large-scale breeding of fish in the open seas.

Construction of the facility by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry in Qingdao, Shandong province, was completed in May.

The cage was then hauled into a mass of cold water, about 240 kilometers east of Rizhao, Shandong.

The work of transporting the cage was expected to take just 10 hours, but it took about 30 hours as a result of security checks at ports and adverse weather conditions, according to Wanzefeng Fishery Co, a company in Rizhao that will use the facility to breed salmon.

After transportation, the first part of the installation process was to secure four chains – each about 100 meters in length and weighing to 100 metric tons – to anchor the cage in the water.

The chains were coiled and shipped to the location before being uncoiled and slipped into the water.

They could only be installed one at a time to ensure a balance of the tension between all four.

It was anticipated that installation of the chains would take about a week, but the process took almost a month as a result of a lack of experience in the assembly of large-scale equipment in deep offshore waters and disruption by summer typhoons.

Once the cage had been attached to the four anchor chains, the salmon were shipped from a breeding center in Rizhao and introduced into the cage. The entire process involved about 70 people.

The amount of food the fish eat fluctuates, partly because of changes in the temperature of the surrounding water. For example, the water temperature in the upper part of the cage recently reached about 24 C, which caused the fish to remain in the lower section. In response, the depth of the cage was adjusted to provide a temperature of between 10 C and 20 C.

Another reason for the fluctuation in feeding is the natural flow of ocean currents that result in groups of fish smaller than the mesh of the net swimming into the cage. Once inside, they become food for the salmon.

Eleven people are in charge of looking after the cage, including a number of divers who check the eating habits and health of the fish.

Chinese demand for salmon exceeds supply.

Wanzefeng Fishery Co has pledged to boost domestic production by introducing more fish to the cage in the future.

RELISH!