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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 32 Number 6
April 2005
Tank Doctor changes indoor lobster holding
GLOUCESTER, MA - Mike Caudle, the energetic and enthusiastic 46-year-old “Tank Doctor” from Enfield, Nova Scotia, is changing the way lobsters are stored indoors all over the world.
He has been a forerunner in the recent lobster holding systems revolution. Systems have progressed from open or closed chilled fiberglass tank to closed chilled cement tank, and now to indoor chilled recirculating spray.
Many of Caudle’s closed, cement tank lobster holding systems – where lobsters are floated in crates inside tanks within huge rooms – are still in wide use in the lobster industry today.
But Caudle just knew there was a better way to inventory lobsters indoors and do away with the space demands of cement tanks. The answer was the spray system, sometimes also called the trickle down system.
“Six to seven years ago, I developed the spray system. I played with it over 10 years. It took a while to make it right,” Caudle said.
With his spray system, lobsters are stacked in totes or trays, usually 60 pounds to a tote, in a storage room. Seawater that originates from an onsite reservoir constantly trickles down on the lobsters from valved overhead pvc piping. The continuous bubbling water flow keeps the lobsters wet and cold, while supplying oxygen and removing wastes.
Floor traps catch this water. It is circulated through a series of external stations and, once cleaned, chilled, and oxygenated, it gets pumped onto the lobsters in a continuously moving flow.
“There is no new water. This system is completely closed. The pumps run continuously,” Caudle said.
The recirculating water moves through four stages, according to Caudle. It is cleaned of organic waste and harmful gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen by flowing through bead filters and a honeycomb-shaped substrate. Then it is sanitized with ozone and lastly chilled and aerated.
“The ozone treatment stops any disease the lobsters might have brought with them,” he said.
Pumps are required to keep the water circulating and most of the systems have back-up generators in case of electric power outages. But Caudle points out that loss of power and recirculation for a short period wouldn’t result in immediate mortalities since lobsters are able to survive out of the water.
“These systems are a great improvement over the cement floating crate tanks,” Caudle said. “You can hold lobsters as long as six months in trays or totes in a temperature around 36 degrees (F).”
It is possible to briefly bring the water temperature up and feed the lobsters, he said.
System placements
The spray systems seem to be catching on, according to Caudle.
His first big installation was for Canadian Gold at Jeddore, Nova Scotia. That unit holds around 250,000 pounds of lobsters, just in totes. Today, in Nova Scotia, about two million pounds of lobsters can be inventoried in indoor spray systems.
Caudle and his assistants, Fred Budge and Colin McDonald, both from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, were installing a 25,000-gallon system that can hold 75,000 pounds of lobster for the Maine Lobster Outlet at York, ME in mid-March.
“This will be the first complete spray system in Maine,” said Caudle.
One of the Tank Doctor’s showcase placements is at Ipswich Shellfish Company, Ipswich, MA.
Installed over an eight-month period in 2004, this spray unit can hold 500,000 pounds and is said to be the world’s largest indoor lobster holding system.
“We had over 400,000 pounds in there just before Christmas,” said the company’s lobster branch manager, Fred Fullerton.
Caudle’s systems are also at work in Belgium, Scotland, and England.
“We have been very busy the last three years. You never know where the next job will come from. I just got three e-mails this morning from Ireland,” Caudle said, when he was interviewed at the Maine Lobster Outlet.
Advantages
One of the chief advantages of the spray system is its reduced physical space requirement.
“The density is the big thing with the spray systems. You can keep the most amount of lobster in the least square footage,” Caudle explained. “The ratio of lobster to water is 3 to 1 with the spray system. The opposite is true for the cement tank system.”
The smaller site requirement has the benefit of reducing construction costs. The lobster storage room doesn’t necessarily have to be refrigerated, but it has to at least be insulated.
If you were to start from scratch, Caudle estimated that you could put in a spray system for about the same amount of money that it would take to build a tank system for a comparable amount of holding capacity.
The crew at Ipswich Shellfish said that the system is easy to maintain, as well. Their maintenance schedule is computer-controlled.
Another advantage is the handling and organizing ease of lobsters in totes. At Ipswich Shellfish, the totes are color-coded. Each color signifies a specific grade of lobster, which makes it easy to count inventory, and the stacks of totes can be arranged so that the first lobsters in are the first ones out.
The lobsters stay clean in the totes, too.
Low mortality rates
Ipswich Shellfish reported low mortality rates with the spray system. For short term holding of 2-3 days, the amount of dead lobsters with the spray system is about the same as with cement tanks and floating crates, about 1/2 to 1-1/2 percent. The mortality rate stays that low after 6-7 days in the spray system.
Wholesalers who buy lobsters that have been held in tubes generally try to sell them out within 7 days to avoid risking heavy losses. With the spray system, tubed lobsters can be successfully held for 11 days.
But the real test of the system’s holding effectiveness was made with Jonah crabs, which normally suffer high mortality rates. Ipswich Shellfish held 5,000 pounds of Jonah crabs for 8-9 days and had less than 4 percent mortality.
The company’s salesmen, Bobby Rose Jr. and Gary Putmar, said the spray system gives them the added assurance of knowing a larger inventory can be held to sell on. And, the lobsters are getting so much oxygen in the system that they ship well, resulting in very low mortalities and satisfied customers.
The Ipswich Shellfish crew has come to call their spray system the “champagne system” because the water mixture trickling down over the toted lobsters is so bubbly or effervescent – like champagne.
Extraordinary person
After you spend time talking to Mike Caudle, you come away knowing you’ve met an extraordinary person who has figured out how to do what he really enjoys, whether in his work or leisure time.
A former auto mechanic, Caudle grew up in Halifax.
“I finished high school, took up auto mechanics, and it’s been largely hands-on, self-taught learning from there. I’ve also done a lot of reading and consulting with scientists and engineers,” he said.
“I started building tank systems at Kitchener, Ontario, in 1986. My first system was for my brother who had a fish market-wholesale outlet there.”
He formed his company, The Tank Doctor Product Systems, that same year at Kitchener.
“I began making 100-gallon aquariums and then progressed to 2,000-pound (lobster holding) wholesale systems, and lastly to ocean systems in Nova Scotia,” Caudle said.
He loves to explore beneath the ocean, too. His hobby is small submarines and he is in the process of building a submersible.
“In 1983 I did the first wet sub (dive). I own a couple of subs. I have been building a three-man, 14-foot-long submersible the last three years. It will mainly be an observation vessel, equipped with mechanical arms and cameras. It will be capable of going down 1,200 feet. This submersible will also be American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) approved,” he explained.
“This hobby could turn into a business. One job complements the other. You have to make a living; the tank system is the bread and butter right now,” said Caudle.
“We won’t rival Woods Hole, and we won’t go down to the Titanic. My goal is to find the Andrea Gail and put an end to the Perfect Storm story,” said Caudle.
He already has a good idea of where the ill-fated Gloucester sword boat might be.
For more information, Caudle can be reached at (902) 873-3939 or by e-mail at <tankdoctor@msn.com>.
Peter K. Prybot
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