Recent Developments in Offshore Fish Pens

Recently, various offshore fish pen design concepts have been proposed, and some have been built over the last few years. Owing to the high energetic offshore environment and deep water, two contrasting design philosophies for offshore fish pens have emerged. One design philosophy is to make the fish pen very large and robust to be able to withstand the strong waves, currents and winds. The other design philosophy is to have smaller, but flexible and submersible fish pen that will be able to descend to an appropriate water depth to dodge the strong surface waves, especially during extreme storms. This paper will present various offshore fish pens that have been built as well as newly proposed conceptual designs that are based on these two design philosophies. Also, recent developments in integrating or co-locating of offshore fish farm with other marine sectors will be highlighted.