The temperatures the past few weeks have been cooler than normal here in southern Texas. A lot of cloudy days as well.
Maintaining the optimal temperature in our production ponds is one of the many critical components that makes our system so much more successful than the production from open water ponds. (There are actually about 15 critical components that we manipulate and control to optimize our system's productivity).
Cloudy days in the winter are not our friends.
We faced an enormous amount of pressure in 2011 just trying to get the facility up and operational. In February 2011 we arrived in Texas. We did not secure a site until late April. We hired our contractor on May 22, and we found and directed the work by all the sub-contractors beginning in June.
We brought our first post larval shrimp to the facility in early November. During this period (From June 2011 to November 5th) we all secured our aquaculture permit, our exotic species permit and our water intake and discharge permits.
(Yes, we have a non-discharge system but in Texas you still have apply for and be approved for a discharge permit in part due to the 100 year flood elevation issues).
Our grow out protocol has us stocking our actual production ponds when our juvenile shrimp are five grams in size.
To grow the post larvae out to five grams when they arrive from the hatchery requires a juvenile rearing (JFR) and about 8-10 weeks, if everything is optimum. Juvenile shrimp actually like the water slightly warmer then the normal 79-82 degrees adult white shrimp prefer. We don't have a JRF for this single production module so we do that same work in one or two of the production ponds. Once we expand production we will quickly build a JRF.
Our system is designed to have the capacity to heat our water for those few weeks a year the temperatures and clouds combine to lower the pond temperature below acceptable levels. That boiler system is being installed as I write this.
In an open water system the lower range of temperatures may well have destroyed a significant number of the young shrimp. It would have completely stunted and stalled their growth. Because we are under greenhouse and we absorb the sun's radiation during the day and use reflective barriers on cool evenings our shrimp not only survived they keep right on growing.
In our shrimp shrimp generally grow 4 -5 times faster than in open ponds. In short because of the attention to the proper husbandry for our system our farm manager and his team maintained, when I got back to the site this morning after two weeks in Maryland and New York City and asked for a weight sampling, this is what I got.
In a single sample the smallest of these shrimp was about 5 grams. Right on schedule as we had planned. They are now ready for separation and stocking into the various grow out ponds.
As the cheetah in the "Frito's" commercial says, "Excellent, Sir".
Or to use another television phrase, "I love it when a plan comes together".
We are going to grow a lot of jumbo white shrimp this year.
Exciting.
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