Open Ocean Aquaculture engineers and operations staff recently completed the installation of a new multi-cage grid system for mooring submersible sea cages. The new grid, which replaced the individual four point moorings that held the two original sea station cages in place, can accommodate four cages in the same footprint as the two cage installation. The 600 m³ sea station cages currently housing haddock and halibut will occupy two of spaces and a larger sea station cage (3000 m³) that will contain the 30,000 cod fingerlings that are currently in nursery pens at UNH’s Coastal Marine Laboratory will be installed in the third space in August. The fourth space is currently vacant and will be made available to an industry partner looking to evaluate a new cage design.

The four-grid system is a major step toward future designs for commercial operations. Commercial offshore farms will need multiple cages to reach the appropriate production scale for profitable operations. Being able to consolidate cages reduces the footprint that farms will occupy and allows for centralized remote feeding and monitoring systems. Smaller footprints for offshore farms will lessen potential conflicts with navigation and fishing. The dynamic tension of the grid system created by the opposing forces of anchors and submerged buoyancy results in extremely taut mooring lines, further reducing the possibility for entanglement by marine mammals and turtles.