Animal husbandry – Aquatic animal culturing – Mollusk culturing
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-01
2001-10-23
Poon, Peter M. (Department: 3644)
Animal husbandry
Aquatic animal culturing
Mollusk culturing
C119S236000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06305323
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a method and a system of rearing abalone, and in particular, a method of rearing which provides the abalone growing under minimal handling and disturbance. Thus, it decreases the abalone's mortality rate, promotes growth rate. It improves land-based abalone aquaculture to become more effective and economical.
2. Description of Related Art
A number of system have been developed to provide abalone rearing. As shown in
FIG. 1
, a conventional rearing trough
20
′ comprises a plurality of water troughs
211
′ connected with one another to form a water channel
21
′. The water channel
21
′ is placed onto supports
24
′ of various heights. The young abalone
10
′ are settled into each of the water troughs
211
′ for rearing. However, such conventional method, apparatus and system used for abalone rearing have the following drawbacks:
1) As the water channel
21
′ of the rearing trough
20
′ comprises a plurality of water troughs
211
′ connected together in series, the water channel
21
′ has to be placed onto a plurality of supports
24
′ of different heights. This rearing trough
20
′ occupies space and the rearing area has not been fully utilized. Further, a large number of supports
24
′ are required for the rearing trough
20
′. Thus, the cost of building a rearing site is high and the productivity of abalone is low.
2) The length of the water trough
211
′ of the water channel
21
′ is fixed and there is no partitions within the water trough
211
′. The abalone are reared in a same water trough
211
′ throughout from young abalone stage until a mature abalone. Thus, this causes either an insufficient use of the rearing area, or insufficient area of growth, where the abalone are needed to be transferred for further rearing at a later stage. However, this will confuse abalone growing procedures.
3) As the space within the water trough
211
′ is limited, only when the young abalone becomes a mature abalone, new young abalone cannot be settled into the water trough
211
′. Thus, the cost of production is high and the efficiency of production is low.
4) In abalone harvest, these abalone have to be collected one by one manually from the water trough
211
′. The harvest operation is not convenient and the procedures of harvest are complicated. Thus, the cost of labor is high.
5) As the water trough
211
′ is a U-shaped structure, the abalone may crawl out from the water trough
211
′ and die. Thus, the fatality rate of abalone is high.
6) The conventional rearing trough
20
′ only utilizes manual power to supply feeds to the abalone thereby requiring a lot of manual labor and disturbing the abalone with external force and light and therefore increasing the cost and increasing the dying rate of the abalone.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method of rearing abalone, wherein a plurality of partitioning boards are provided across a water channel to form a plurality of water troughs of various sizes, i.e., from larger size, and subsequently to smaller size troughs. The position of the partitioning boards is adjustable within the water channel to provide sufficient rearing space and to avoid overcrowded and insufficient of feeds for rearing. In addition, the numbers of water troughs are dependent on the growing time of the rearing abalone, and abalone of different size can be reared along the same water channel. A water channel liner is provided at the front end of the water trough such that the mature abalone (of certain size suitable for harvest) can be easily collected by withdrawing the water channel liner. A small portion of anaesthetic is sprayed into the liner to cause the abalone which are adhered to the liner to release from the liner without manually collecting the abalone.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and a method of rearing abalone, wherein the length of the water channel can be adjusted and the area of rearing can be sufficiently utilized.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method of rearing abalone, wherein the top edge of the water channel is provided longitudinally with a reinforcing board to prevent the abalone from crawling out from the water trough.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and a method of rearing abalone, wherein a filtering device is used to purify sea water and the purified water is transferred to the water channel and the used rearing water, after passed through a smaller water trough, is directly collected in a precipitation tank to precipitate out large particles within the used rearing water. The water is then passed through a mechanical filtering pond and a biological filtering bed to remove afloat particles and other toxic materials.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and a method of rearing abalone, wherein referring to
FIG. 5
, a semi-automatic feeding machine is arranged between the water channels, which can move to and forth along the passage and move vertically to supply feed to the abalone in the water trough and can be moved to the other passage for supplying feed to the abalone in other water troughs thereby reducing the manual labor to operate the rearing troughs and preventing the abalone from being disturbed by external force and light and therefore increasing the rearing efficiency and lowering the production cost.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3196833 (1965-07-01), Glancy
patent: 3771492 (1973-11-01), Doherty
patent: 4183322 (1980-01-01), Shultz et al.
patent: 4226210 (1980-10-01), Lockwood et al.
patent: 4257351 (1981-03-01), Scura et al.
patent: 5377624 (1995-01-01), Craig et al.
patent: 5558042 (1996-09-01), Bradley et al.
patent: 5660142 (1997-08-01), Van Rijn
patent: 5820759 (1998-10-01), Stewart et al.
patent: 5961831 (1999-10-01), Lee et al.
Dougherty & Troxell
Poon Peter M.
Shaw Elizabeth
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