Thanks ! You have really got my brain ticking and the kids LOVE the idea (I think one of them is more into breeding grubs!). Husband might take some convincing but I’ll twist his arm. Might start with marron which I love.
Maybe you could twist his arm with this, last night’s harvest 
No bright orange flesh to be seen!
If you can source the gear to set it up reasonably inexpensively, it can pay for itself, and there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing you don’t have to rely on huge companies with dodgy practices and supermarkets to supply all your fish. Last time I bought fish (other than live fingerlings!) was 2012. Getting a bit off-topic here, so email me if you want any more info, or search online- “The IBC of Aquaponics” pdf is a very useful guide to get you started.
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I saw the Four Corners report. Another absolute scandal highlighting the vandalism of big business and the negligence of governments which turn their intentional blind eye as the most horrific acts are perpetrated on both citizens and the environment.
Citizens need to use social media to bring down governments and close down industries which attack the future of the planet and those who live on it.
Tassal appears to be just another marauding company which does not give a damn other than making money. You’d think the CEO of this company would have the intelligence to understand the problem and to collect fish faeces and excess food for sale to the farming industry. That would be too much to expect from such a highly paid corporate nincompoop though.
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Richard, you should be making the complaint to Hobart Airport or the officers who confiscated the fish as they had no right to.
I am not surprised that Tassal did not respond as you didn’t buy the food directly from them (you bought through a third party shop) and there was nothing wrong with the quality of the Tassal’s product bought. The issue is the improper confiscation of the fish at the airport. If they did respond, I expect that they would have said something similar and told you to take up up with the airport.
I also suspect that the fish may have been confiscated if it was open (not in a vacuum food bag for example) and fresh…as any leakage of such on a plane could cause problems especially if the leakage comes into contact with the planes wiring/electronics. There have been problems with minor leakage on some planes from the kitchen areas.
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Actually I bought it from the Tassal Visitors Centre in Salamanca Place. Is that not run by Tassal?
The sales attendant was told we were flying and helpfully packed it in sealed plastic for us and gave us sealed ice packs as we told her we were taking the fish as hand luggage in a zippable cold bag back to Adelaide and then to Hong Kong that night.
I have run B2C businesses for decades and not responding to customer complaints is a No-No for me. If Tassal were innocent they had even more reason to reply…
I watched the 4 corners program and was shocked that greed seems to be Tassels main priority. Yes businesses have to make a profit but if they are doing environmental damage by over farming it should responsible for the cleanup. But by that time they have usually gone into receivership and the government has to do it. We had done the cruise and they were very upfront about the fish being fed to make the flesh pink. At the time that seemed ok until I saw what was in the pellets that the fish are fed. I will no longer by farm salmon because of the shitty pellets and the amount of waste that is left to sink to the bottom. Yes farm fish but in reasonable quantities peĺlets that resemble a natural diet and find a way to cut back on the over supply of waste. WWF should be ashamed of themselves selling out for 30 pieces of silver. Well done 4 corners. All fish should be labeled properly as we pay a premium price and we are what we eat.
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How do we buy your food Gordon? 
How do you tell what company produced the salmon? Seems like some of the other companies had better attitudes. However most supermarkets just say “Tasmania salmon” which doesn’t help.
It is also a real concern that TASAL went to the lengths they did with plans to combat the 4Corners. If everything is OK it should be able to stand up to scrutiny without doing that…
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Years ago David Suzuki highlighted 2 problems with our Atlantic Salmon industry and it seems nothing has changed! He said that we were artificially colouring the fish and that we were using up a source of food for people in South America( I think) in order to feed the salmon.
I went on the Macquarie harbour sea tour a few years ago. The captain radioed the farming staff to feed the salmon for the entertainment of us passengers. I was appalled by the huge amount of fish on the surface going for the food and asked the captain of the environmental impact of such condensed farming numbers. He assured me the farming practices were regularly monitored by scientists!?! Sounds like the same qualified excuse is being used!
Tassal on the evidence (4 corners) does not seem to work by the same integrity of standards which Huon do. In fact the whole presentation by Tassal’s representatives came across as very artificial. In fact when I visited Strahan I came away with the determination to always buy Huon. Woolworths has both but as the programme revealed Tassal is a much bigger operation. I’m not too bothered by the colouring at this stage. We need the balanced Catalyst staff, or what’s left of them, to do a dedicated research programme!
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I’m with you, tndkemp! I’ve always been a great admirer of 4 Corners, but that was a very shoddy report. Far too many questions not followed through on, not asked of the right people, and far too many close up shots of the journalist (which is immaterial, but annoying), and far too sensational a reporting style, with no depth or balance - I felt as if I was watching 60 Minutes.
The outrage about colouring used in the fish food is ridiculous - how many people eat eggs without a thought about the colouring fed to chooks to brighten the yolks, how many people worry about eating dyed Sicilian olives, or red icy poles.
I have toured one of Tassal’s farms, where they told us about the progress that has been made since the early days of fish farming in minimising waste during feeding, minimising the use of antibiotics by putting the fish into fresh water periodically to prevent gill disease, cleaning the nets to prevent other diseases and parasites.
Even though I am partial to a nice bit of salmon, I am not an apologist for fish farms. The damage they do is obvious in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, where most other fish have practically vanished. As a recreational boater, I find the farms unsightly and an inconvenience, as well as a danger at night, when there are inadequately lit. And I am not in favour of their proposed expansion on to the East Coast of Tasmania, which is already compromised by the effects of the East Australian Current bringing warmer water and foreign marine species, which have all but wrecked the once bountiful kelp forests, so necessary for the biodiversity of the indigenous species. Far better that they stay in the areas they have already sullied, without making a worse mess by growing unsustainably larger.
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An opinion piece in the New Daily about what the writer belives is a poor record on sustainability and ethical grounds. The piece calls out the feed industry for these fish and the terrible environmental impact it is having.
1.76 tonnes of feed used to grow 1 tonne of salmon is quoted and often the feed is derived from perfectly palatable fish. Destroying fishing areas where the feed is sourced from, and polluting the waters where the Salmon are grown.
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The same applies potentially to amost agricultural products. Animals fed grain (protien) to improve meat production, plants (traditional or organic) fed products which could be used for other purposes (organic possibly worse with use of green manure crops etc.
Comparing problems in another country may or not to relevant to Australia. Claiming it is representative shown potential bias unless both sides are presented (namely response from Australian salmon industry)…otherwise it is an opinion.
Indeed an opinion which I clearly made reference to at the beginning of my post, yet an opinion that seems backed by evidence gained from investigation.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0257-9
If the feedstock is sourced from those countries (which it has historically been the case) then it is no bias to consider the environmental and lifestyle impacts similar to the clothing industry that supplies Australian stores. I remember the imported pilchards feed used in the Tuna industry that brought disease into our environment here.
Carbon & nutrient insertion into our soils by using manures has been a sustainable means of improving soil nutrition for a very long time, the use of chemically produced nutrients has not been so ‘clean’ in it’s outcomes.
The point was made that the feedstock used had the following characteristic “Yet a major study found that 90 per cent of fish caught globally that were not used for human consumption were ‘food-grade or prime food-grade fish’”.
Further reading for any interested that link the feed supply Giants outlined in the opinion piece “leading global fish-feed giants BioMar and Skretting – which, along with Ridley, are the feed suppliers to Tasmania’s salmon industry”
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I don’t know the truth of it but everyone should read Richard Flanagan’s new book, Toxic. If half of it’s true, it’s a disgrace. The environmental damage from Tasmanian fish farms is, allegedly, huge. Flanagan alleges that the government, regulators and bureaucrats aren’t doing a good job either.
Don’t buy the book from Fairfieldbooks in Melbourne, however. I own it with my wife and I’m not trying to boost sales of the book to our advantage. Do buy it from an independent bricks&mortar bookshop, if possible.
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Although some might discount some claims as sensationalism it is worth knowing Flanagan’s publications.
An honest question whether a novelist, no matter how good, is an expert? Yet it can be a compelling reading.
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I don’t think he needs to be an expert he just has to show the proof. The proof seems to be made clear and so we no longer have a fiction writer but a non fiction writer.
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Farmed Tasmanian salmon is an environmental disaster. The farms are poisoning the waters around Tasmania, thus killing off the native fish. And they are permitted to shoot fur seals, whereas if you shoot a fur seal in SA it will cost you up to $100,000 in fines.
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