Facts, assumptions and unknowns
Everything in the brief is sorted into three columns. Facts are measured or contractually secured. Assumptions are plausible but unverified. Unknowns are gaps that must be closed before equipment can be specified. Most first briefs contain far more assumptions than their author expected.
- ·Water: source, seasonal temperature range, salinity, iron, hardness, availability in the dry season
- ·Power: connected kVA, reliability, cost per kWh, backup requirement
- ·Site: area, elevation, discharge permit route, flood risk, road access for containers
- ·Market: buyer, product form, size at harvest, price realism
- ·Team: who will operate the farm, and whether they have run this system before
Choosing the production system
System type is the single decision with the largest cost consequence. A RAS facility, a lined pond farm, a biofloc system and a sea cage cluster can all produce the same tonnage at completely different capital and energy intensities. The right answer depends on water availability, energy price, land cost, biosecurity requirements and the market you sell into — not on which system is fashionable.
Where the choice is genuinely open, the comparison is written down so it can be defended later to a lender, a board or a tender committee.
Phasing and staged capital
Many projects that fail at full scale succeed in phases. Brief review tests whether phase one can be built, stocked and sold before phase two is committed, and whether the infrastructure of phase one can carry the later phases without being rebuilt.
Guides that support this decision
These comparisons cover the trade-offs that dominate the system decision — capital intensity, energy, biosecurity and market fit.
Is my aquaculture project feasible? What a review actually tests
A feasibility check at this stage is not a fifty-page consulting report. It is a structured challenge of four things: whether the site’s water can support the species at the target density, whether the power and logistics can support the system type, whether the target output matches a real market at a realistic price, and whether the budget band is in the same order of magnitude as the ambition. Most projects fail one of these four on first review, and it is far cheaper to learn that now than after a deposit.
The output is a decision, not a document: proceed as described, proceed with a changed production model, or stop. Around a third of the briefs we review change system type at this point — a planned RAS becomes a hybrid flow-through, a pond project becomes biofloc — because the measured water data contradicted the catalogue assumption the brief was built on.