A Shrimp "Farm"? Seahorses and tiny lasso's?

I try to use the word farm as much as I can.  I had a friend tell me he just can't get used to the phrase "shrimp farming".  Living here in Colorado when you say farming everything possible can pop up in your mind but shrimp is a hard one sometimes.  He said he envisions little fish riding on sea horses lassoing shrimp to bring them in to take to market.  (There has to be a marketing piece there somewhere.)

So with the thought of shrimp farming being a hard one to capture in your mind, at least here at the base of the Rockies, here are some other items that are currently being farmed that you may have never thought about:

These are salt water types:

*Sea Weed
*Several different sea going fish
*There are companies right now working with raising oysters/clams in large tanks, and are being successful with them.
*Lobster
*Blue Crab
*Coral   (this one really isn't as off the wall as it may sound.  Although they are mainly used in aquariums, it is a great way to help protect natural reefs)
*Algae

There are some odd sounding items on that list aren't there?  Here in the inland areas of the U.S. we wouldn't  normally think of farming algae or seaweed, but there is actually a fairly healthy market for it.  Some of these items are still in the beginning stages of being farmed in tanks, so it would be awhile before we tried them.  Others we could attempt at any time.

For fresh water it is the same type of thing.  There are several different species that can be raised.  Colorado's aquaculture market exceeds $15 million annually.  That's not bad.  Most of that is in trout, but there are other fin fish as well.

When we farm our crops in our raceway tanks we are doing a couple of things for the environment.

1) We are actually using less water than pond farmers.  Once we fill our tanks we don't have to empty them. We are able to continually use the same water, only having to replace the water we lose to evaporation.
2) We don't need to use that much land.  The land we do need isn't having to be destroyed.  Here in Colorado we do require an indoor facility but we aren't digging deep enough 1 acre ponds that we destroy the landscape of the land.  What we would use in 5 acres it is estimated that a normal pond shrimp farming facility could take between 300 and 500 acres to accomplish the same thing.
3)  We don't require heavy machinery to operate our facilities.
4)  In the past where our carbon fuel output would have been quite significant, solar power has made it so fossil fuel use is cut back by more than 1/2.

There are more positives to this shrimp farming at the base of the Rockies   Even if it doesn't involve sea horses and tiny lasso's herding the shrimp in to take to market.  (Still a cute idea)

So just keep telling your self Shrimp Farming, Shrimp Farming, Shrimp Farming.  Better yet:  Premier Rocky Mountain Prawn, Premier Rocky Mountain Prawn, Premier Rocky Mountain Prawn.......