Are expensive computer and monitoring systems really necessary in fish culture?
A. No. But then again, the insurance on your house is not really necessary for the purpose of living in the house either. However, if your house burns down and you have insurance, then it turns out to be a good investment. Computer monitoring and controls serve two main purposes. First of all, computer monitoring allows the operator to evaluate the conditions of the system at all times, even when he is not at the facility. By watching trends he can keep the environmental conditions at a level that will eliminate the stresses mentioned above. Also, by keeping track of the conditions he can get maximum growth and production performance from the culture and keep his operating cost in line. However, there are many people operating systems without this type of monitoring who do very well because they spend a lot of time on the job working with the fish. For a hard working, dedicated owner/ operator this is acceptable. However, in a situation where the owner is depending on employees who may
