Why Commercial Aquaculture Projects Need Supplier Comparison
The first supplier a project owner contacts will scope the project around what that supplier sells. That is not bad faith; it is how technical sales works. The result is a design locked to one technology before alternatives were priced.
Comparison only works on a normalised scope
Two honest proposals for the same farm can differ by a factor of two because they assumed different biomass, different reuse rates, different redundancy and different scope boundaries. Normalising them is the subject of the supplier comparison guide, and the RAS bid normalizer does it numerically for reuse systems.
The specifications that decide outcomes
Oxygen transfer capacity, filtration and biofilter capacity at design feed load, pumping flow and head, installed and critical-load power, and redundancy on every loop the animals cannot survive without. Check each against your own figures from the oxygen requirement, filtration and generator sizing calculators.
Compare commercial terms, not just price
Delivery terms, commissioning responsibility, warranty conditions, spare parts pricing, local service response and references with comparable species, scale and climate. The cheapest headline number is usually the offer that excluded the most — listing exclusions side by side is often more informative than comparing totals. Lifetime cost is better captured by the TCO comparison calculator.
A reviewed brief protects supplier relationships
Manufacturers respond more seriously to a complete brief than to a vague enquiry, and the project owner gets faster, better-quality answers. That is why FishMatch reviews the project first — the sequence is described in the commercial project guide and the RFQ guide.
Discovery is not matching
Supplier and country directory pages exist for research and discovery, not automatic matching; the boundaries are stated in the supplier directory policy. Country pages such as marine aquaculture equipment in Morocco or feed mill equipment in Brazil are research starting points.
FishMatch Group structures that comparison after reviewing the project brief. It does not manufacture, install or resell equipment, and the buyer selects, negotiates and contracts directly. Start with a human-reviewed RFQ.
Frequently asked questions
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
Every FishMatch project runs through the same five reviewed stages, from a first enquiry to comparable quotations. See the full buyer journey.
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