SeaGen Aquaculture, a Marine Bioproducts CRC Industry Partner, visited two hatcheries on the east coast of the United States: the Ferry Cove Oyster Hatchery and Horne Point Oyster Hatchery in Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the country. The visit provided insight into large-scale marine invertebrate production, highlighting significant opportunity for Australia.
“These hatcheries are showing what’s possible in larviculture, the production of microscopic larvae from shellfish and other invertebrates.”, Dr Chris Gillies, Managing Director of SeaGen Aquaculture, said.
“What stood out most was the level of technology and process integration,” Chris said. “They use incredibly advanced systems to reliably produce billions of larvae each year, and that production is used for both commercial aquaculture and restoration.”
Hatcheries featured fully automated high volume photobioreactors (L) and efficiently designed laviculture systems for turning over up to 46 tanks per week, each with 5 million oyster larvae attached to 3m3 of shell cultch.
For the Marine Bioproduct CRC community, the visit reinforced a central theme: innovation needs to extend beyond discovery to scalable, and stable, production. Automated environmental controls, real-time water quality monitoring, precision microalgae dosing, and high-density larval rearing systems enable these hatcheries to operate as integrated biological manufacturing platforms. This technology integration significantly reduces production variability and production ‘crashes’, one of the major challenges for commercial hatcheries.
Settlement and nursery phases are similarly optimised by both hatcheries. Precision grading, upwelling systems, and streamlined transfer protocols increase larval-to-spat conversion rates, improving yield per spawning event. This level of production efficiency lowers per-unit costs and enables large-scale production.
“The most astonishing part of the hatcheries was the microalgae production, which is a major bottleneck for most hatcheries in Australia and elsewhere”, Chris explained.
“They had entire culture rooms filled with photobioreactors. I’ve never seen so many in one space before. Photobioreactors keep consistent cell densities, which means a highly precise and uninterrupted live feed supply. That level of control changes everything when you are trying to scale”.
These hatcheries also demonstrate how commercial aquaculture infrastructure can intersect with restoration programs. By embedding restoration supply within commercially viable operations, facilities can maintain workforce capability, technical expertise and improve economic viability. For SeaGen, the visit showed the importance of technology systems with scale, automation, and process discipline at their core. Achieving meaningful impact in commercial aquaculture, as well as coastal restoration, will depend not only on scientific breakthroughs, but on the ability to translate research into industrial-scale, repeatable production platforms – exactly the kind of systems innovation the Marine Bioproduct CRC seeks to advance. For more information or to register interest, contact info@mbcrc.com.