Marine Science · Hatchery Production & Rewilding Supply

Every release begins as a number on this plan.

Production Planning turns the rewilding mandate into a schedule: how many of each species line we must spawn, rear, and grow out this cycle to meet the Registry's restoration quotas — and where the pipeline will bottleneck before it does.

Marine Science · Production Planning

Production Planning

The hatchery production plan across the Breeding Station: output targets per species line, the spawn → fry → grow-out → release pipeline with yields and timelines, capacity against rewilding demand, and the schedule that drives the floor. Feeds the restoration program and is backstopped by the Genome & Cryo-Bank.

Doc Control AE-PRD-0001 Revision A Owner Husbandry Lead Last Review 2091-03-06 Classification RESTRICTED // TIDEWATER-EYES-ONLY

The plan in one line

Production is demand-pulled, not supply-pushed. The restoration program sets a rewilding quota per restored site; the plan back-calculates how many spawns each line must produce to clear that quota after expected losses at every stage. We breed to the quota and the wild-type standard — never beyond, never for the trade.

Operating principle. The release number is the only target. Spawns, fry, and juveniles are intermediate inventory; a cycle that hits its spawn index but misses its releases has failed. — Husbandry Lead

Cycle KPIs

Hatchery Spawn Index · SPI58%conditioned pairs spawning · target ≥ 50%

Fry Survival · FSV64%larvae to juvenile · target ≥ 60%

Rewilding Releases · RWR9,140individuals YTD · plan 11,000/yr

Output targets — species lines

Per-line targets for the current cycle, set from the restoration quota and adjusted for each line's stage yields. Brackish and saltwater lines carry longer grow-out and therefore wider error bars on the release date.

Line	Zone	Spawn target	Release target	Grow-out	Status
Rift-lake cichlid assurance	Cichlid Hall	48 spawns	3,200	14 wk	on plan
Spring goodeid lines	Livebearer Racks	continuous	2,600	10 wk	on plan
Keystone grazer inverts	Invertebrate Room	22 broods	1,800	12 wk	behind
Clownfish & dottyback	Reef Conservatory	30 spawns	1,500	18 wk	on plan
Resilient coral genotypes	Reef Conservatory	fragging	900 frags	20 wk	staging
Seagrass nursery stock	Aquatic Flora Propagation	division	1,000 units	8 wk	on plan

The production pipeline

One continuous line, five stages, four yield gates. Each stage multiplies the loss of the stage before it — which is why the plan is written from the release number backward, not the spawn number forward.

Stage	What happens	Typical yield	Duration	Gate
`SPAWN`	Conditioned broodstock spawn; eggs collected and counted at the rack.	viability > 70%	days	egg viability
`LARVAE`	Larval rearing on staged live feeds under held chemistry — the fragile window.	survival > 60%	2–4 wk	larval density & survival
`FRY`	Weaning to formulated diet; sorting, deformity screen, quarantine clearance.	~85%	3–6 wk	quarantine clear
`GROW-OUT`	Conditioning to wild diet and current in grow-out / Gyre pens.	~90%	8–20 wk	fitness index
`REWILD`	Soft release to a restored site once site water clears restoration thresholds.	site-gated	release window	site water OK

The larval gate is the bottleneck. Roughly two of every five larvae are lost before metamorphosis. The plan over-spawns to clear this gate — never the later ones, where over-production wastes capacity that another line needs.

Capacity vs demand

The Station's culture capacity is finite; the rewilding quota is not always. When demand exceeds capacity, the plan prioritises by Registry conservation tier and by cryo-backup status — a line with secure cryo coverage can yield rack space to one without.

Rearing capacity utilised91%culture volume committed · headroom thin

Quota coverage96%planned releases ÷ restoration demand

Capacity contention. The Invertebrate Room is over-committed this cycle; the keystone-grazer line is behind because rack space was held for a priority cichlid spawn. Husbandry Lead has flagged it for the next planning review.

Production schedule

The rolling schedule that drives the floor. Release windows are gated on the target site clearing restoration thresholds — a window can slip even when the stock is ready.

Window	Line	Stage due	Volume	Destination	State
Wk 12	Spring goodeid	REWILD	1,300	restored spring system	scheduled
Wk 14	Rift-lake cichlid	GROW-OUT → REWILD	1,600	soft-release pens	staging
Wk 16	Seagrass nursery	REWILD	1,000	meadow restoration site	site-gated
Wk 18	Clownfish	GROW-OUT	1,500	Gyre acclimation	scheduled
Wk 20	Coral frags	GROW-OUT → outplant	900	restoration plots	site-gated

Genetic discipline in production

Volume never overrides the wild-type standard. Pairings are drawn from the Broodstock Ark to maximise genetic distance; no line is bred for the trade, and every cohort is reconciled against the pedigree to hold broodstock diversity above its floor. Production is, before anything else, the controlled release of genetic insurance held in the cryo-bank.

Standards & cross-reference. Targets are set from the restoration quota, executed on the Breeding Station floor, backstopped by the Genome & Cryo-Bank, and tracked against the husbandry production metrics.