Hatchery Planning: Capacity, Tank Volume and Cost
Hatcheries are sized backwards. Start from the juveniles the grow-out farm needs each year, apply the survival chain stage by stage, and the required egg or nauplii intake, tank volume and building size fall out of it. The hatchery planning calculator does that arithmetic; the hatchery capacity calculator cross-checks output.
The survival chain dominates everything
Egg-to-larvae, larvae-to-post-larvae and nursery survival multiply. A drop from 55% to 45% larval survival raises the required intake by roughly a fifth and the tank volume with it. Use verified figures for your species and region, not catalogue values.
Batches per year, not tanks
Cycle length plus turnaround, disinfection and drying time set how many batches a tank delivers annually. Compressing turnaround is usually cheaper than building more tanks — until biosecurity suffers, which is the one saving that always costs more later.
Water, heat and biosecurity are the real budget
Exchange rate, heating or chilling, filtration, UV or ozone and effluent handling routinely exceed the cost of tanks. Size water demand with the water consumption calculator and treatment with the water treatment calculator; reuse systems should be checked in the RAS water turnover calculator.
Then price it
Add broodstock, maturation, live feed, quarantine and laboratory areas on top of rearing volume, and test the total with the CAPEX estimator against the drivers in the aquaculture CAPEX guide and the running cost in the OPEX guide. The hatchery setup cost guide lists the CAPEX and OPEX lines a hatchery quote should itemise.
Take one brief to suppliers
Species, annual juvenile target, survival assumptions, biosecurity level, water source and site status are the minimum a hatchery supplier needs — the structure is in the aquaculture RFQ guide, and a hatchery RFQ takes it straight to review, and offers are normalised with the supplier comparison framework. Regional context: shrimp hatchery equipment in Bangladesh and fish farm setup in the Philippines.
FishMatch Group is an independent aquaculture project sourcing and RFQ platform. We are not a fish farm, feed producer, equipment manufacturer, EPC contractor, lender, broker-dealer, investment advisor or financial advisor. Supplier and project partner outreach happens only after a commercial project brief is reviewed. Start with a human-reviewed RFQ.
Guides, calculators and country pages for this topic
Use the guides for the decision framework, the calculators for indicative numbers, and the country pages for local scope and cost context. FishMatch reviews every request by hand before any supplier is approached — directory and country pages are for research, not automatic matching.
Guides
Calculators
Aquaculture planning benchmarks
| Figure | Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| CAPEX — RAS | USD 9,000–14,000 per tonne/yr | Global baseline before country cost factor. |
| CAPEX — Ponds | USD 1,800–4,000 per tonne/yr | Lined or earthen ponds, excluding land. |
| CAPEX — Cages | USD 2,500–5,500 per tonne/yr | Cages, moorings, nets and service equipment. |
| CAPEX — Flow-through | USD 4,000–7,000 per tonne/yr | Raceways and water intake works. |
| Energy use | RAS ~6 kWh/kg; ponds ~1.2; flow-through ~1.5; cages ~0.3 | Per kg of fish produced. |
| Typical FCR | Trout 1.1; salmon 1.2; shrimp 1.4; tilapia 1.6; carp 1.8 | kg feed per kg growth; varies with feed and management. |
| Farm size where FishMatch reviews projects | From ~USD 250,000 total project value | Commercial fish and shrimp projects. |
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Where this fits in a real project
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