41°south
salmon & ginseng farm
41° About the salmon farm
41° south Aquaculture started farming fish in 2000 with water being diverted through a pipeline form the Western
Creek Rivulet.
Trees, mainly willows and gorse were cleared to make room for what are now the feeding ponds. The system was set up to act as a miniature wetland with 2 round ponds as grow out ponds and the larger pond acted as a settlement/wetland pond.
The current processing facility used to house the small fingerlings until they were large enough to be put into the round earth ponds.
In 2003, A large risk was taken by converting the farm to a bigger recirculation system. In a year the following was achieved:
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pouring 20 concrete tanks (11 tons per tank)
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building a 150m boardwalk
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excavating and creating the wetlands to act as natural biofilter
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creating the current walks
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clearing the scrub and bush
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building the processing facility
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building the shop and residence above
The whole project was finished in one year.
In September 2005 the Meander Valley region especially Deloraine experienced a major flood.
41 south was hit hard, the farm just opened for the public and everything was freshly established. The water level rose by 1.6m overnight and this caused the intake pipes to block, which stopped the water flow into the farm. The next morning 10 000 fish that were nearly ready for harvesting were dead.
The newly created wetland had not established itself and the plants, trees and walks were washed away. One of the dam walls also broke and washed the soil away. The entry to the wetland boardwalk was also substantially damaged and needed rebuilding.
The farm closed for 3 days and everything was rebuild, replanted and remade with minor modifications made where necessary. Now the wetland reeds, bushes and trees are truly established.The grasses and reeds do their job and the water going out of the system is cleaner than what is coming in.
The farm is now in a stable environmental position.
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