Cultivation
How marine fish are cultivated on Dalma.
Six steps from a fertile egg to fish on ice. Today the work is grow-out in Gulf cages; the hatchery, feed and processing steps are planned for later phases, after Phase 3.
01Eggs and first water
02Larvae, then juveniles
03Feed planned beside the fish
04Grow-out in the open Gulf05The crop is the water
06Harvest, chill, prepare01
Eggs and first water
Cultivation begins before the cage. In the planned hatchery (a later phase, after Phase 3), broodstock will be held onshore and eggs incubated in conical tanks, where a slow upwelling keeps them suspended until they hatch.
02
Larvae, then juveniles
Newly hatched larvae are too small for dry feed. They take live food — rotifers, then brine shrimp — in round tanks, then grow into fingerlings ready for the sea. Aquafaq's planned hatchery is drawn for 40 million juveniles a year, in a later phase after Phase 3.
03
Feed planned beside the fish
Grow-out fish eat compressed pellets sized to the mouth of the animal, dosed by automatic feeders rather than dumped. A mill on Dalma is planned for a later phase, after Phase 3, at 60,000 tonnes a year — twelve times the cage capacity.
04
Grow-out in the open Gulf
Juveniles are transferred into floating circular cages: a ring of HDPE pipe, a net hanging in the water column, a walkway for feeding and inspection. The fish live in real seawater, with current, oxygen and the temperature of the Gulf. The offshore lease at Dalma is 250,000 square metres. Design capacity of the cages is 5,000 tonnes. That is grow-out: the long middle of cultivation, from fingerling to harvest size.
05
The crop is the water
Aquaculture is not agriculture with a different animal. The medium is water. Density, dissolved oxygen, salinity, ammonia and temperature decide whether fish grow or fail. In cages the Gulf does most of that work. In the planned hatchery, and the future shrimp RAS, pumps, filters and sensors would do it. Health is daily: a slow feeder, a diver, a lab reading.
06
Harvest, chill, prepare
When fish reach harvest weight they are taken from the cage, killed humanely, bled and put on ice. A processing plant on the same island — gutting, filleting, freezing, packing — is planned for a later phase, after Phase 3, at 20,000 tonnes; the cages are designed at 5,000 tonnes.
How we cultivate
The crop lives in water, and water is daily work.
Seed from the island (planned)
Once the hatchery phase is built, after Phase 3, juveniles are planned to come from Dalma, so a cycle is not left waiting on a distant supplier.
Feed beside the fish (planned)
A feed mill is planned on the same site in a later phase, sized so feed is not the constraint on the cages.
The water that suits the crop
Cages use the open Gulf. Shrimp, a future project, are planned in recirculating water, kept apart from the cages.
Health as daily work
Veterinary care, fish health and measured feeding are part of how the cages are run, and how the planned hatchery is meant to be run.
A short road to the table
Grow the fish on Dalma now, and prepare them on the same island once processing is built in a later phase, so the origin stays simple to state.
Photographs are real records of aquaculture and seafood — cages, hatchery tanks, feed and harvest on ice — not generated images. Hatchery, feed and processing photos illustrate plants planned for later phases.