Ep. 09 Hawaii Aquaculture

In this episode we will be talking about Aquaculture in Hawaii with Dr. Bradley "Kai" Fox who is the Hawaii Aquaculture Extension Specialist, with the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program (Hawaiʻi Sea Grant). 

If you have any questions, comments or request for special topics please contact us at walaau@hawaii.edu

Guest Contact Information & Resources

• Hawaii Sea Grant 

Additional Resources:

• Livestock Extension Group Facebook page
• Livestock Extension Group Youtube channel
• UH CTAHR - Livestock Programs

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Transcript

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Shannon Sand: 0:13

Today's episode is brought to you by the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the livestock extension group.

Melelani Oshiro: 0:21

Aloha welcome everyone to the livestock Walaau podcast aim to provide educational support information, guidance and outreach to our livestock stakeholders in Hawaii. We are your host, Mele Oshiro and Shannon sand. Today we're going to be talking with Dr. Bradley Kai Fox, who is the Hawaii agriculture, aquaculture, excuse me, extension specialist with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program or Hawaii Sea Grant. Dr. Fox conducts research education and extension activities as part of a newly developed aquaculture hub across Hawaii and the US affiliated affiliated Pacific islands. His program aims to address production challenges in Hawaii and those us affiliated Pacific islands. So thank you, Dr. Fox, or Kai for being here today. We're so glad you're able to come and talk sorry with Shannon and I. And I. Yeah, we're so glad that we were able to connect it and get you on the show. So you're currently working with the Hawaii Sea Grant? And would you like to share more about how you came to your current position there and kind of what your program is?

Dr. Bradley Kai Fox: 1:28

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Thanks. So I guess I can just give you guys a little bit of background on secret a lot of people aren't too familiar with it. Secret is it's the Sea Grant program in the United States sort of models, the land grant models, the like, you know, CTAHR and Sea Grant and our program in Hawaii was founded in 1968, at u h. U h Manoa and was actually designated a program in 1972. So it's not nearly as old, right? CTAHR is sort of the founding College of u h Manoa u h system. But it was basically formed in response to try to do similar things that the land grant does, but using taking care of like coastal resources and freshwater resources. So not every state has a Sea Grant. I think there's about 34 programs. But it's all the Great Lakes states and all the coastal states have Sea Grant Program. So it's it's again, fashion in a similar way. We have researchers, instructors and extension. It's actually it's an organized research unit of the School of OCEAN, Ocean and Earth Science and Technology or SOST. Oh, it's great to sort of Capelle Yeah, CTAHR. And we have statewide and Pacific wide duties and responsibilities. I can just give you kind of generally our mission because a lot of people aren't really sure exactly what we do either. So our mission is to provide, again, the same kind of thing, Research Extension and education to promote sustainability of coastal and marine resources across Hawaii and Pacific region. And we have four general focus areas, healthy coastal ecosystems, resilient communities and economies, environmental literacy and workforce development and the focus area that I'm most involved with to choose sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. So a lot of our extension and research faculty are involved with things like you know, king tides, climate change, tourism in Waikiki, you know, integrating or interfacing between, like the hotel industry and the public, you know, the beach, the sand edition in Waikiki Beach, that kind of stuff, right? We have a, we have a really kind of long history in aquaculture. So, you know, in the on the continent, a lot of the aquaculture in the past has been with land grant, actually in there, our land grant, like Auburn University, right. There's a lot of work. They're probably the biggest and fanciest aquaculture university in the US, right. And they have about 1000 acres of freshwater ponds and the marine component in Mississippi, right. So but in in Hawaii, we, we have a very kind of, we have slightly different opportunities and resources, right? Mostly, mostly seawater is what that's what we're surrounded by. Right. So so we've been involved as Sea Grant in things like LIMU farming back like in the 70s and 80s. We were involved in the prawn hatchery that was developed the first macrobrachium hatchery in I think the world actually it was in Africa alone in Sand Island. And then when the host Park develop no ha on your guy's island in Kona. We did. We were involved in deep water. Sorry, cool, you know, deep ocean coldwater aquaculture research with salmonids, trout, salmon, that kind of stuff back in the early 80s. And since then a lot of stuff has kind of some industries have developed from that. We were involved with the marine shrimp program in the 80s and 90s. And, you know, that's a significant portion of the aquaculture industry here actually has SPF Trump, right. And then also, you know, a lot of a lot of research and feeds technology, local feeds technology, because just like, you know, terrestrial livestock feed is really, right. Right. Yeah. Always like that. Right. Yeah. And I don't know if you guys remember the, the, the offshore cage project in the late 90s, early 2000s. Ever, we're growing boy, I was actually a part of that project. Initially, there was a secret project as a diver, and was part of the finfish program at oceanic Institute at that time, and that kind of really started me in this field. And then, you know, secret has been involved with a lot of local Yoga, you know, Native Hawaiian fishpond work throughout the years, we've developed a sort of a sort of roadmap protocol, if you will, like format for interfacing between researchers and key and local your community so that there's a sort of reciprocity there sort of even flow of information and resources between the two communities called the kulana. No, II, it's one of our extension products that's that we're very proud of. And then, as far as Pacific Regional Extension, we, you know, we work closely with our partners in Department of Interior and land grant programs throughout the Pacific and Palau. Marshall Islands are in my American Samoa, CNMI, FSM and Guam with no partners throughout the Pacific. So kind of circling back. I know, sorry, that was a lot just to kind of circle back to how I just want to give you guys kind of like right where we're at, to how I came to this job. Yeah. In the late 90s and early 2000s, we had a really strong program in the state called the aquaculture development program, ADP, and that was mostly funded by the state, although we had some halftime Aquaculture Extension positions to receive grant about five or six of them on Maui went to Hawaii Island couple on Oahu. They all started had state statewide duties in the Great Recession. 2008, right 2009 It hit us took a big hit, right? We basically lost that fund, that funding went away. We basically lost our extension capacity at Sea Grant ADP pretty much disappeared. So there hasn't been much extension since about that time for the past. Yeah, maybe 10 years after that, right. Yeah. What's been happening recently though, is we've had a lot of congressionally directed initiatives through NOAA, which is our sort of parent federal agency to fund aquaculture, they've decided to put money into it so that we've had Hawaii grant I have have secured a couple of large grants, which fund which which led to the funding of my position and we actually have my colleague Sheree kawaii in in Hilo, she's oh you h Hilo. She's from that area from kilka Ha, area. And so we were able to hire the two of us. She's an extension agent. They're in aquaculture. And one of the projects actually is a collaboration with CTAHR. It's with Dr. Andre cod knows no yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's integrating land and sea grant aquaculture research and extension. And what we're doing with that project is building out the U H Manoa facility at Magoun. We're calling he's calling it Tarik. So yeah, Manoa will now have to be a recirculating large aquaponic aquaculture and resources like

Shannon Sand: 9:23

I'm always so interested in aquaponics. Yeah, I prefer Florida originally. So I'm like, I'm always interested in like, just closed circuit. I think that's, I just think it's so neat. I don't necessarily get all the science behind it because I'm an economist. Like I just think it's so fascinating. Yeah.

Unknown: 9:41

Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. And it's really the what we're seeing, I think, you know, globally, too, is both offshore cage culture. mariculture right. And what you're referring to recirculating aquaculture systems or rest technology are becoming economically viable. So you know that economics is the most

Shannon Sand: 10:04

important part of it. So I'm available if you need.

Unknown: 10:08

Yeah, we need to understand it right. Otherwise the private sector is never gonna buy in. But what we're seeing now is the private sector is buying it. They're putting hundreds of millions of dollars into projects. Right, which means for sure, they think it's going to make money. Right. Yeah. So it's really exciting time. There's, there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff, a lot of work with that. And, you know, Nordic countries have been doing the cage culture stuff for decades now. And they've really refined it. So I wouldn't say that there probably leaders in the world right now. But as far as Rast technology, Europeans, and then some East Asian countries have have really pushed forward on that, using the water to the point where you're exchanging only about 1% of that water per day. Yeah, the nice thing about those systems, though, is right, you can you can build them anywhere. Right. And it's the same issues in Vegas, right? It's all similar. So the cold chain transportation costs all of that. Yeah, right. Yeah. So you can build these things. In cities or right next to cities need a water source. You don't even need seawater at this point. They're building seawater shrimp farms in Minnesota right now. You know, recirculating systems. So So, anyway, so that's funny. And then the the, just the last thing I was just gonna say is the the other part, the other major grant, that is funny my position right now I'm actually a soft money faculty member. So I'm, you know, constantly hustling, right, me and Shane are constantly is a hub Consortium. So it's Pacific, of what you Pacific aquaculture consortium Consortium, and all the partners I listed before we have folks, you know, sprinkled throughout the Pacific region, and we work together to, you know, leverage that and look for bigger funding.

Shannon Sand: 12:02

Very cool. So the hub, I guess, again, like my background is like ag economy business. So when you say a hub, I'm thinking like, like a clearing house, or like a, like an aggregator of like, some sort of food, whether that's livestock protein, honey, whatever, or like vegetables. So is that what this is gonna be? or is that kind of, or is this different? More like information? Or? Sorry?

Unknown: 12:30

No, that's a really that's a really good question. Right? It's right. It's not so much of physical product production hub, right. It's more of a sort of intellectual hub of getting our partners together, leveraging their resources and working together. So like, for example, right now I have I'm Sheree and I are writing, I think, three pretty good sized grants, with partner with our partners in American Samoa and Guam. And, you know, we're going to share those resources because especially with the US territories, right, the Congressional money is, is meant to be distributed throughout the main, when you when you let when you when you work together, you have a really good chance of securing funding, and then also addressing local challenges. You know, a lot of their challenges are similar names in different islands, but a lot of them are very different than American Samoa is very different from Guam, very different from CNMI and Palau.

Melelani Oshiro: 13:25

Yeah, yeah, that's very interesting, because we did when I first started, and I was back as a, as a research assistant, we had a big grant working with outreach down in the CNMI, and, and Palau and FSM, and all that. So it's funny, because it's just not funny. But I mean, it's just the correlations between the issues that they deal with is very similar, but yet different. But yeah, so yeah, that's very good. Exciting. Yeah.

Shannon Sand: 13:52

So that's cool. So can you tell us a little bit more about some other projects you're working on right now? Are those kind of the main ones that you've got?

Unknown: 14:00

Yeah, no. So those so what's nice about those projects are they're they're really overarching and other projects can sort of be folded into them. So the Sheree and I have have been really fortunate over the past year and a half or so we've gotten about about four, four projects funded project. Yeah. Awesome. And so some of that, so some of them are related to local area. Oh, sure. He's gotten a couple grants to do work with sort of getting the local community together, organizing meetings, identifying, you know, doing like needs assessment, and really trying to understand, you know, what, what are the what is the need of the committee in terms of moving forward? Is it restoration, you know, Visa species or them and then is there a want or a need to take another step like integrating conventional aquaculture or you know trying to make money so there's a very diverse approach and a need and want for that. So we're working on that working closely with Chua, which is the statewide network and Hui Malama local area. And the Lima Hui, also the statewide Lima Hui. So that's kind of one thing we're doing. We also are looking at, we got a sea grant project that I'm working pretty hard, pretty feverishly on right now because there's, there's a tiny is all kind of coming together at once. But we're working with Waikoloa local area, which is a fish pond in South colonial hibi. Oh, the that fish pond is owned by the Pacific American foundation. And so we've we've had a partnership with them for a long time. About 11 acre pond, they're not huge, but they do a lot of cool stuff with winrar Community College and a lot of the surrounding high schools and middle schools, Castle, high school, a lot of educational stuff, but they're also interested in doing contemporary aquaculture, like sort of integrating the two together. So what we're doing, just to go back up a little bit, put it in context, one of the things that native Hawaiian fishpond practitioners are interested in is obviously bringing back the ear, whether that be you know, whatever kind of fish that is, but specifically, there's a couple that are high on the list. One is the ALMA Mullins strike mullet. Random one is the ABA for the milk fish. Those are those are kind of the two traditionally raised these are herbivorous fish. So they're, you know, we liken them to cattle, they're sort of low. primary producers, right. Yeah. Yeah. So but for a number of reasons, invasive species is overfishing, pollution, you know, just poor state of the local ears themselves. There's, you know, low numbers of these animals in the pond. So. And so what's happened in the past, is there been several efforts to try to use hatchery raised animals. So like, for instance, at the oceanic Institute, they develop hatchery methods for striped mullet back in, I think, the 80s. So this has been known for a long time, they actually did tech transfer around the world at that time, Indonesia, Egypt, they moved it all around the world, that technology for that, and milk fish. So we've had a lot of impact, you know, as a state around the world, but we haven't, we haven't brought it back to ourselves. And we haven't educated ourselves, you know, and our public about it, which is, which is really unfortunate. So that's what we're trying to do now. So oceanic Institute is able to produce poor armor, you know, babies, right. And there's been efforts in the past where we've, they've released them into local year, with not not the greatest result. You know, so there's a lot of reasons for that again, yeah. Yeah. We actually don't know, all the reasons but you know, predatory birds, you know, there's a big one, and there's poaching. There's all kinds of stuff. But the bottom line is these are naive animals, right? They were raised in a sterile hatchery. And so they don't want the instinct. Yeah, yes. You know, there's some issues with that. So, there's still a desire to do that, though. So what we secured this funding, we're calling it the pool bootcamp. It's, the idea is to get the naive fish, bring them into a tank based system, adjacent to the local er, use the actual local your water, filter it to the point where we can take out the parasites, but not to the point where we kill all the microbiome and all other living stuff. Right? Right. and expose the animals in a controlled environment, grow them up, increase the size it release, and then hopefully, we increase survival. So that's, that's something we're just we're getting all the tanks delivered. We're getting all this you know, we're building.

Melelani Oshiro: 19:32

Yeah, I mean, that that must have a big impact on them. Right? And the survival rate of being able to adjust to their natural environments getting out there. It's probably it's like throwing you're throwing your kid out the door without exposing them to grass. Right. Was same same with any other animal too? Yeah.

Unknown: 19:49

You would think so. Right? Yeah. And so the this is all theoretical, whether we were just right, yeah, hoping that that's the case. But right now, there's a lot of stuff right even with humans with you know, I always use the example fecal transplant. It's becoming more and more Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah. microbiome in the gut, because if you cannot if you do not have, you know, colostrum, yeah, for a baby, right, if you don't give them that they cannot survive. Right? Yeah. They need that. Right. Yeah. injection into their gut, because it's not in their gut. It's the same. I think it's the same. And there's there are some studies coming up with fish, if you just throw them in the wild. I mean, they've been eating pellets. Right.

Shannon Sand: 20:30

Right. Make sense? We just had Dr. Jaw on previously. Yeah. And his area of expertise. He does a lot in poultry, but he specifically does a lot in livestock. Biomes. And so I was like, oh, yeah, this kind of makes sense now. Yeah.

Melelani Oshiro: 20:44

Yeah. And it's a very hot topic in a lot of the different areas. And in, you know, in livestock or any animal science and talking about those aspects of using those areas to kind of improve efficiency and, and health of the animal. So that's very, yeah, very interesting. Exciting. Yeah, continue. Sorry.

Unknown: 21:07

Yeah, so so we're just, we're gonna try, we're really hoping that will succeed, what we're hoping and then so So, so we're going to build up a series is a couple of dozen tanks, right? These animals are going to land in one, about half of the tanks, where we're gonna raise the fish, we're gonna bring in invite GE, we've already invited them, this is going to be a wahoo project first, but hopefully, if this works other local, you're interested in adopting this, we're gonna, you know, write up publication with our how to do it, right. And hopefully get their buy in, you know, like, okay, so this batch, this tank is going to say, local AR, Alibaba, right? Cookies come in for the for the last maybe couple of weeks. Or maybe they spend time throughout when when they're there, just, you know, malama the fish. And then yeah, when they're ready, we're going to take water quality, locally to right, and we're going to have fresh water and sea water spigots on each tank, we can adjust the salinity to just right, right, get them all just maybe even bring some diatoms or filamentous algae from upon. So they get the again, that same, we're not gonna match the microbiome again, right. And then just be real nice to them and hopefully survive very quickly. Yes, the idea. But the other half of the project is to take the effluent water from those tanks and run it through a series of Lemo tanks. So we're going to do tumble culture LIMU, hopefully, maybe three or four varieties of Lemo. And use the nutrients from the fish tank to grow the Lima, this is not new. But what's cool about it is you're double using the water right and double using the nutrients. And it allows for it a couple of things. The the fishpond operator specific American foundation will be able to then sell somebody with the money back into the program. And then we were thinking the other sort of maybe half of it. Again, these are just sort of rough numbers, but so LIMU as a routable product, the other half maybe will provide to other community groups like Waimanalo, Lima Hui, for example, is interested in taking and outplanting doing all planting. And we've had conversations with DLNR division of aquatic resources. They're interested in partnering with us identifying sites for restoration. So restorative aquaculture is kind of a new buzzword now. Getting species that are depleted in the wild, you know, it's stuck enhancement essentially. Excuse me. So that's the sort of other half is that is the LIMU side of this project. So there's a lot of interest, the way we're kind of looking at it. And I keep telling people that this is the way we think about it is, and this is, you know, again, thanks to all of our partners, by the way, I gotta say that all of my PI's Oh, Kopi eyes. Oh, yeah. Thanks to everybody. Because this is a team effort, huge team effort. Pacific American Foundation, in particular, have been super supportive and open to this. We're thinking of it more as a public laboratory, in that sense of just allowing anybody to come in and play with seawater because nobody really gets to write. Suddenly, like, the only reason all the research comes out of a few places is because they have seawater. But this opens up the opportunity to bring school groups and we're working with Windward Community College to develop a possibly a LIMU certificate to the algae through the a tech foundation. So like an industry certificate, industry recognized certificate and legal culture, this will be macro algae, right that LIMU but in the future, we're going to look at micro algae, also. So that's, that's, that's the sort of pool bootcamp right get get the floor ready for that and then kind of the other big project that's coming up just got funded is a no SK project through the partners Between Sea Grant Pacific American foundation again and Kuwait you see farms court you see Farms is is a aquaculture farm based at a local era. So multi generational owned local year, family, their local family that has been in charge. They've been guilty of this look we have for many generations, and they've decided to kind of commercialize, they're doing clams, oysters, and some fish. But what this project is intended to do is to develop a sea cucumber industry here. Oh, interesting. If you guys remember a few years ago, there, there was a moratorium placed on sea cucumber collection. Remember, the guy got caught up because actually Waimanalo with all the hundreds of pounds just took everything. So before that there was no regulation on collect, you could just collect whatever. So thankfully there's a moratorium. So the center for tropical subtropical aquaculture, which is a USDA funded aquaculture funding agency, and if you guys familiar with them, they're they're based out of ag science building. They're affiliated with confess they have funded in the past development of culture methods for various CQ commerce. So we have basically have the manual, we know how to do it, but nobody's doing so called AEC firms is going to refine those methods and actually get to the point where they're going to produce them and then we're going to, once they produce juveniles, they're going to send them to us on a Walkman, we're going to throw them out in local ear. So the goal is to provide a couple of things is a couple of things developed an industry for either sale for food as juveniles for ornamentals like we can ship them around the world, right. I mean, people like to put them in their fish tank and cleans the sand in their fish tank grade. And then possibly for process dried and sale, which is one of the big markets also, these things go for $100 a pound, by the way, we,

Shannon Sand: 27:10

you know, growing up, I remember like, because again, like, I'm from the coast myself, I was like I did they were everywhere. Yeah, and

Unknown: 27:20

there's a there's a lot of species, some are more desirable than others. Yeah. But yeah. And then hopefully, if this if if local ear, if managers of native Hawaiian fishponds are interested in diversifying their businesses. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. Right, and grown, because really, they just eat the mud.

Shannon Sand: 27:43

Yeah, I mean, they're cleaner, basically, it's kind of I understand, I did not realize the value in them, though. No, I didn't realize they were worth so much now. Because I just think of what we were kids that you just

Unknown: 27:53

right. And that's so that's a value for like the food market. Right. But there's a huge market for the small wins. And if you think about production, right? If you can get them out sooner. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, you're looking at like, I mean, I don't know exactly what the market is, but it's probably over $20. One for like this, you just said

Shannon Sand: 28:16

$100 a pound. And I'm like, wow, you could get the if the if it's cost effective to grow them, and you can sell it for $100 a pound, you could make some good money eventually, you know, as a producer, if you can refine that and get it down to just right, you know,

Unknown: 28:31

this is probably what drove the guy to service that one time. He was like, oh, yeah,

Shannon Sand: 28:37

that much. Yeah.

Melelani Oshiro: 28:39

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure right, that had to have been a big value in it. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have approached it that way. Well, that's very interesting. So it sounds like there's more. I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but like with livestock in my position as an agent, we have, you know, the small producers, backyard production people, which I'm kind of kind of relating that to your local folks that have the native fish ponds, and they're the ones that are trying to restore that. And then you also have work with commercial producers, I guess, to on the sense, right. And the other end of the day, so I'm just trying to get my head around these. But yeah, it's because there's so much right. And I think that's so important, the local fishponds growing up, we were down in I hope Walaau Every summer, you know, and the, the going around, we were very familiar with the fish pond that was down there, because we that's just, you know, that was the area. So when you said 11 acres was kind of small is like what's kind of peak for pot, isn't it? Yeah, but I'm sure like in the you know, in the production standpoint, it must not be so. Yeah, that's that's very interesting. And you know, like Shannon and I were saying we didn't have a lot of knowledge or information about aquaculture here in Hawaii. I mean, we I know it surrounded us and it's a big commodity market and whatnot. So it's very Interesting. So in your projects, as there's so many that have a lot of questions, but what kind of tips I guess Can you have for some producers that maybe want to go into aquaculture here in Hawaii? And, you know, what can you offer them as far as advice on getting started? Or? Yeah, you know, and maybe some other unique aspects of jolla aquaculture that they need to consider, you know, before wanting or deciding to dive into that. That era?

Unknown: 30:28

Sure, yeah. And I really didn't mention, a lot of the smaller growers are not only local your folks, but there's a wahoo. Specifically, the major market is freshwater. Oh, really? Yeah. We're talking mostly either. And it's mostly a live market. It's mostly tilapia.

Shannon Sand: 30:50

Well, aren't there specific varieties of tilapia that were developed in Hawaii? Because there's like a really beautiful one. I feel like I want to say it's like golden something. I was looking up tilapia for a while a while ago, because someone was asking some questions. Yeah.

Unknown: 31:06

Yeah. Yeah. tilapia? Yeah. So tilapia, hybridized. Very easily. There's, there's probably, there's probably about 200 species of tilapia, there's a lot and we here have it's mostly the Okay, so there's, there's two general Sorry, I'm gonna get a little deep into tilapia now. Okay. So there were two kind of major imports of tilapia and and they're, they're separate genus. One is the one that people have sort of a prejudice against, I think it's the Ahlawat tilapia, right. It's the one that's in the stream in the month and it's kind of rubbish.

Melelani Oshiro: 31:51

Growing up, that's what people used to.

Unknown: 31:54

Unfortunately, so the bottom line is right, let's just clear this up real quick. From my perspective is you are what you eat. Right? You live in the all the way you eat all the way mud. You're gonna taste like the olive oil. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Not eat that. So And those were, so that is the blockchain tilapia primarily, and that's sarin. They're on. They don't get very big and have a big head. If you look at them closely, they actually have a black, a black kind of pocket under their chin. Those were actually brought in as aquatic weed control. And then also as bait fish industry, the Aqua guys that can be a good idea to throw them off the boat and see if they ball up like the like the Neihu ins didn't work very well. So they primarily are. So tilapia, generally are what we call URI hailing. They can live in seawater or freshwater. Some species are more stable hearing, they can live. They prefer to live in one environment than another and the other, the Sarah third on the blockchain is more. Do you know hating seawater, they like to live in saltier environments, but you will find them and maybe half seawater and brackish. And then the other genus, which is the food, tilapia, yeah. The Golden One you're talking about? Yeah. Comis. That's the genus. And we have probably 10 different species of Oreochromis. And those are the ones that get big. You can come in Hilo River and right in their heating, some of them are huge. There's a farmer here who has a broodstock it's almost 20 pounds. Wow. Tilapia, so I mean, that's

Melelani Oshiro: 33:39

right. Yeah. Boy.

Unknown: 33:44

That's huge. That's huge. Right. Yeah. So and so your, your question about I think, I wouldn't say we have a species that you know, that term gets kind of muddled around. Yeah, definitely have varieties of cultivars. You could call them strains, right? That were developed here. It's fairly easy to do. Some species, the Mozambique tilapia, for example, are very saltwater tolerant. But they can live in complete freshwater too, but they can develop in two or even three times seawater string. So they're very adaptable. So if you but they don't grow as quickly and they don't grow as as large as some of the other varieties like the blue, tilapia are now sloppier. So you can make hybrids, and you sort of incorporate the traits, right. So you have animals that grow quickly,

Shannon Sand: 34:29

just like crossbreeding with any sort of livestock basically, in a way. And I've heard I have looked into it because I had people that asked about it. Like I have heard tilapia is actually one of the better ones to start with, because it's reasonably priced. And just, again, correct me if I'm wrong in general, they actually you can. They like to be together. So you could do a lot in a smaller space.

Unknown: 34:51

Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of there's a lot of advantages to growing tilapia. If you're if you're thinking about getting into it, even On a small scale, yeah, pretty sturdy animals. So, you know, the specially for aquaponics where your recirculating system perfectly Yeah, kind of making the water quality jump to feed the plants. They can survive, you know, they're there. And they're pretty tolerant to swings in dissolved oxygen, which is usually what kills fish. The acute death of fish is usually caused by either a huge temperature swing or a drop in oxygen. And that's usually what goes up quickly. So yeah, they're really adaptable to that kind of stuff. So yeah, they're much easier to grow than any other fish. I call them the chicken of the stream.

Melelani Oshiro: 35:44

I mean, I've had to lock in that, you know, you get those that are farm raised or what? It's really good. So I know there's no complaint on my end. But yeah, that's very interesting. Because I think a lot of we visited one farm once I know and on Maui that was doing that. They had them in the tank. So how long? I guess how long? What's the growth cycle? I guess to fro Yeah. To harvest something like that in your system? Yeah, that's

Unknown: 36:09

a really good question. Like, I think like every livestock animal, it depends on your management, right? If all things are equal, there are allegedly varieties of tilapia that can get from a bag to one kilogram regular over two pounds in six months.

Shannon Sand: 36:34

Wow. That's pretty quick. Yeah. For livestock, because I'm just thinking like I know, like, broilers go six weeks, but like pork takes what? Six? Nine months, man? Yeah. Somewhere in there. Yeah. Cattle 18 to 24. So that's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. And

Unknown: 36:52

the other this sort of thinking about those sorts of things. Comparing livestock, the food conversion ratio is close to one. Wow. Yeah. So So and then if you pair it with, say, vegetables, or fruit? Yeah, then you're double using the water. Right? You're right. Yeah, well, nutrients. So you're usually about 50% of the protein gets gets taken up by the fish. And the rest of the nitrogenous waste that comes out. Usually ammonia, can easily be converted to nitrate. And you can recapture closer to 75 to 80%. If you incorporate the vegetables in, in product, so it's a lot more efficient way. And then again, if you're using if you're managing it properly, you can you can reuse the water to the point where so there's a couple of different strategies to integrate. And one is recirculating. That's what people usually think of aquaponics or water just going around around. And then there's new emerging style, which is also very kind of an old concept, but they're adapting it to modern technology is called decoupled. So you use the concept is you have a recirculating aquaculture system. And sometimes that water goes out one way to vegetables, either in like Dutch bucket kind of hydroponic systems or into like irrigated fruit orchard, Jensen and ADA published a really cool study up at Pomo using Chinese catfish, decoupled aquaponic systems, sending it out through drip tape to Carlo. And he found that he was able to basically replace all of the fertilizer. Yeah, for the color, like you didn't have to use any fertilizer to grow it at the same rate as a regular fertilizer. But the same yield. So I work closely with Ted Radovich. Yeah, yeah. So we, right now are working on a decoupled aquaponics system at the Waimanalo egg station, irrigating a fruit orchard of mostly avocado, different varieties to try to get an orchard set up in Waimanalo of different varieties that will grow yours will have your own harvest. And we'll be able to produce a significant amount of tilapia at the same time by sort of balancing the nutrients and input right on that side. Yeah, so there's there's a lot of different ways to do it. Sorry, to your question about how to get started. I'm just gonna plug plug our program that we're working with,

Shannon Sand: 39:32

Oh, yay, yes.

Melelani Oshiro: 39:34

And we'll share the wheelchair you guys have a website that we can share in the show notes and stuff for the podcast. So yeah, definitely. Going back to your use for them in a in a in an orchard farm. I mean, you must have to have a large setup then for the tilapia itself right. Based on however big your orchard so is there a rate like if you have so many acres of tree is you would need a tank that's, you know,

Unknown: 40:03

fine. Exactly that. And that's the question that nobody really has the answer to right now. And that's why I love working with Ted. And working with him for about over 10 years now. Yeah. brought him over to the dark side of aquaponics. He loves it though. He's he's really focused a lot of cool stuff. So the idea of, of really combining those two fields of study, right aquaculture and then horticulture, and so the if generally, the way we can think about answering your question is okay, in a recirculating aquaculture system and sort of a low tech, say you had a farmer out in right field, he already had existing orchard, right? You just want to irrigate that with fish through the water. Right? Yeah. So how big of a system you have to make kind of low tech? Well, low tech, you probably want to exchange closer to five to 10% of your water per day. The systems I was talking about the 1% Yeah, those are they're really, really fancy, super expensive systems that you know, super scrub the water and they spend a lot of electricity doing that. Yeah, so more of a lower tech five to 10 per day percent of water per day. So if you calculate your orchard, right, you know how much water your orchard needs, you can take that daily water use and scale it into a five to 10% exchange of a tank tank. Right. Does that makes sense?

Melelani Oshiro: 41:30

Oh, yeah. Okay, that's kind of how we

Unknown: 41:32

did it. We sort of Yeah, actually, we did it the opposite way. We started with the tank. Because that's we just had the footprint you know, and we are like, Okay, how big is the orchard have to be to do that. But this is all part of a you guys familiar with a go farm? Yeah. All right. Yeah. So this past year, Janelle Yamamoto, Ted Roberts and I partnered to develop a program for a beginning farmer training program that is basically a offshoot of go farm called Go fish. Oh, I love that. Cool. So that's that's the if people are interested in starting in this, definitely come check out Go fish. We started with it. It was only open to current or alumni Go fish. Sorry, go farm. Alumni. Yeah, we're thinking about if we're looking for funding, basically, we did it with no funding. We just like leveraged resources and just did it gave it a shot. Yeah, we're trying to get money for it. But yeah, the idea was to, you know, go go farm is full of like, super legitimate entrepreneurs doing their thing, right. And they already know what they're doing. Yeah. So how do we integrate aquaculture if they're interested into those operations? That was kind of the purpose of it. But yeah, so on Oahu, most of the farmers are freshwater Chinese cat fish or tilapia. And you can do it. You know, Aquaponics is a good way to get started, like small scale aquaponics just to see like livestock, right, you guys, you've got to feed them every day. You got to check on him all the time, right? I mean, there's always

Shannon Sand: 43:08

gonna say like, how small can you start? Can it be like a 10 gallon tank? Can it be or should it be like, I'm taking like a like a cow water drop? One, but like one of the small like? Yeah,

Unknown: 43:25

it's funny you say that? Because that's exactly what we use. We use the water troughs. Yeah. The poly water troughs. Yeah, it's tanks. Yeah, well, so it all depends, I guess write in on how big you want to go. So I guess the way the way, the way that I like to talk to people about it, if they're thinking about doing it is what do you want? Right? Right. What are you trying to get out of it? Because that really just depends, determines what the size of it should be. So if you want to eat a lot of fish, obviously, you get a big tank, right? If you some people just will never ever they do name their fish, and then it's over. They just will never ever harvest their fish. Right.

Melelani Oshiro: 44:07

Another question I was going to ask the fish or can you just keep them in there forever? And just you know, okay,

Unknown: 44:14

definitely. And if you're not interested in eating them, I mean, you can grow tilapia but you know, there's other fish tilapia. So generally, fish are what we call indeterminate growers will definitely tilapia indeterminate grows. So you can, if you hold them in high density, they stay small. Yeah. And then as them our space, they'll grow even, you know, years later, they'll have compensatory growth. Oh, wow. Some other fish don't really do that, or they do to a much smaller degree. So if you if you want to just hold it in the way we think about aquaculture is biomass. pounds per weight per volume. So if you don't want your biomass to change, because that's that's directly related to the amount of feed and Oxygen you have to put into the system, right? If you want to hold it steady, and you just want to prevent stubbles there's fish that you can grow in that won't really grow weed.

Shannon Sand: 45:08

Oh, cool. I didn't know that he's for

Unknown: 45:11

example, carp are like, you know, those feeder comments, those little fear. Some of the aquarium fish, they just won't grow. And if you just want them as pets to me do the water for your plants right then? Yeah, that's all you need.

Melelani Oshiro: 45:27

That's a new technical word,

Shannon Sand: 45:29

you know? Yeah, we're gonna say, like, I love it. Yeah, and if you can't understand

Melelani Oshiro: 45:38

that, then while we talk so much about tilapia and all these other fish, but you know, one thing that comes to my mind all the time when I think about aquaculture is our ahi and tuna and all that stuff. So maybe do I mean, I have one last question for you, but maybe do you want to just touch upon that and what, how is that in relation to aquaculture here in Hawaii?

Unknown: 46:05

Yeah. So Right. So okay, so really the, the i those kinds of animals require a lot of oxygen and really clean water. Yeah. And a lot of space so that there are efforts underway, there are successful operations growing, for instance, Bluefin Mavado. Right. And other in Japan, and in the Mediterranean, also. Those are in cages offshore. Yeah. Has to be, there's no way you can do it online. So there have been efforts in the past to do that. They there's been resistance to cage culture, and there still is. So I think it's it's I think the tide is shifting. I think people are getting a little more educated, a little more savvy about exactly what's going on. Technology is improving. Yeah. So I think you'll see more cages coming up in the future. We may or may not see. I think one of the issues is just to be completely honest about this. Fishermen don't really want to see that. Right. So what happened, but we'll see. But yes, absolutely. It's possible. There are other fish though. Kona Kampachi. Yes. That is basically a Kahala it's our native Kahala. shortfin it's not the real big one. It's the sort of medium sized Kahala delicious. If you haven't tried it, please try it. The farmer he's gonna Kampachi is super auto. Yeah.

Melelani Oshiro: 47:34

Well, I guess that might answer. My last question then. And most important is where is everybody going to get the best place to get our New Year's sashimi right? On the island, but particularly for shattering tonight? We were more concerned about Big Island.

Unknown: 47:49

You know, what I would say is, I mean, if you haven't, if you haven't checked out, no. Ha. in Kona, I would say check it out. In fact, there's a researcher know how right now, Neil Sims? Yes, company is ocean era. They have closed the lifecycle on one of the main UI species that we have. Oh, and he's been growing. He's been feeding them trout pellet. And he did some taste tests. And that one is really yummy fish too. Yeah. You know, again, you are what you eat, right? It's not so.

Shannon Sand: 48:27

Yeah. 100% I had, I've had pork that someone fed turnip greens to. I couldn't eat it. I was like, it is what? Like this, like this tastes kind of like turnip greens. And she's like, Oh, I didn't say that. But I was like, Oh, what did you feed them? And they're like, Oh, the reason I'm turnip greens. I was like, this explains a lot.

Melelani Oshiro: 48:49

You had this conversation too with Dr. Shah, right about the makna cake because we were talking about magnets, yeah, poultry. And even with pork, right, same thing. I prefer wild pork that have been eating mac nuts compared to Yeah. Yeah, so that's very interesting.

Unknown: 49:06

I will tell you this real quick. I know we have to go but the I'm working on a project with Are you guys familiar with Casey hole in him fast? Yep. So Casey, who and Andre seal and I are working on a project right now. Because Andre and I come from the same lab at HMB tilapia lab. So physiology lab, and when we were grad students we used we would eat the seawater, tilapia. Raw, no pocket and sashimi. And it is excellent. It's really Yes. And in Japan, it's called Izumi die. That's, you know, you'll find sashimi restaurants as easily as talapia. And so we're working on on a project to hopefully kind of boost the local tilapia industry because you can definitely that's, you know, we're talking about like smaller growers being unable to produce a high quality? Yeah, like that. Yeah, that'd be unnecessarily compete with it. But you know, when it when there's dips or whatever, to sort of supplement the market like that, yeah, there's a lot of potential.

Melelani Oshiro: 50:11

Well, I think I've opened my mind, you know, I always thought I was sashimi every time just oh, he you know, because that's how we grew up and whatnot. And then my in laws and whatnot, they're like, No, they'll feed me another fish. I'm like, what, I just eat it. They tell me and then they'll tell me what it is. And I heard you know, and so then my father in law and fight and whatnot. And my husband's grandmother, namely, was another thing, they talked about eating sashimi, and I was like, Maybe we really like, Yeah, some people it does, you know, but it is it is what it is what the what the animal eats, you know, really does impact the quality and taste of that protein. So wow, was there anything else that you want to share? Or add? Or? Again, any programs? You know, we're happy to share that information.

Unknown: 50:59

Yeah, no, I just, you know, I just did drop anchor with you guys. I'm also kind of still affiliated with CTAHR, a part of the food systems working group with so do something and LinkedIn and anyway, still affiliated, MBB faculty. So I still work a lot with with CTAHR students. And so any projects you guys want to collaborate on? Or? For sure, you know, let's do it. Okay. Yeah,

Shannon Sand: 51:27

that's it. I'm around. So yeah. And I hear across all commodities. Yeah. You're you're based in a wahoo. Kai, is that correct?

Melelani Oshiro: 51:36

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Unknown: 51:37

Yeah, that's right. And because of COVID haven't made it you actually haven't met Sheree in person yet. It's all been doing for the past year.

Melelani Oshiro: 51:45

And a lot. Yeah, same here. Wow. Well, thank you so much. We're so glad that we were able to have you on the show today. Thank you, Kai, for taking the time to talk story with Shannon and I. Yeah, we really hope that listeners gained some insight into aquaculture in Hawaii and learn some tips on how to get started if they want to get started, where to go and the resources to reach out to so thank you so much for being here today.

Shannon Sand: 52:12

Yes, thank you. Thank you. Yes. And to all of our listeners, make sure you join our Facebook page, the livestock extension group if you haven't already. And be sure to visit the U H. CTAHR. Extension website and our YouTube channel listed in the show notes below. And we will put any websites that we can from KY related to like go fish and go farm and stuff. Yeah, y'all can check those out. Because that sounds really exciting to me. I

Melelani Oshiro: 52:36

know. Right? That's a very catchy Go fish. I love that. I know. I love that. Yeah. So for any additional information about this topic or other resources, you can also see the Hawaii Sea Grant website, which will be listed in the show notes of the podcast and the description box of our YouTube page. Thanks again for listening to the livestock Wala'au. And before we go, as Shannon will always say show some love for your favorite podcasts. That's us by leaving us a review on Apple podcasts or your favorite platform to listen. I'll wait hold to next year and a holy Take. Take care and we will