Your Lobster Tanks Can Do More. Here's What's Holding Them Back.
A few years back, I toured a lobster-buying facility that, on paper, had everything going for it: abundant clean well water, cold temperatures, consistent access to product, and a solid labour market only ten minutes away.
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By all visible metrics, the place should have been able to comfortably purge and hold half a million pounds of lobster. My measurements confirmed that the tank footprint easily supported that capacity.
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Yet management insisted they could never exceed 250,000 lbs. Why the enormous gap?
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Their past experiences had taught them that whenever they double-stacked crates, lobster mortality spiked. Having spent my career designing, building, and correcting tank systems, the cause was obvious within minutes: inadequate oxygen. Unfortunately, this is true in more than 90% of the industry’s traditional tank designs. Chronic oxygen deficits drive long-term mortality rates of 2–3% (and often higher) — but because the losses feel familiar, they’re usually dismissed.
Management had become so accustomed to the problem that they believed it was unsolvable. When I explained the cause, the response was to request a quote for an oxygen monitoring system “to confirm the oxygen was low.” Even after I outlined the solution — Aqua Production Systems’ oxygenation approach — their in-house technician dismissed it outright: “That won’t work.”
What or Who is Undermining Your Operation?
Years went by with no changes. Eventually, the business was sold. I can’t say whether tank performance played a role, but if you’re paying for staffing, utilities, and infrastructure built for 500,000 lbs and you’re only comfortable holding half of that, profitability becomes an uphill climb.
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Fortunately, the new ownership group was already familiar with APS and has since begun upgrading the water treatment system so the tanks can finally perform to their full design potential.
What is Poor Tank Design Costing Your Business?
Do you avoid filling tanks to capacity in the summer because you don’t trust the system to maintain temperature? Do you write off recurring mortality as “junk lobster,” “a warm year,” or any of the other well-worn explanations we all know too well?
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Those small losses add up. And they steadily push facilities into decline.
If you’re ready for a system that actually performs the way it should, connect with APS. We’re always available for a private, honest conversation about what your tanks are truly capable of — and how to get them working for you instead of against you