First some facts:
This idea would require quite a bit of financial and educational capital. Particularly in order to make it completely planet friendly. However nearly every output would be utilized in some form.
Salt water fish can survive a wide range of salinity as long as they are acclimated gradually. They in fact can grow better in slightly lower than ocean saline as their organs for maintaining osmotic balance are less taxed.
Fish are good to eat.
Fish are becoming scarce and catch bans and limits are occurring.
The oceans are becoming increasingly polluted with heavy metals and other compounds that we don't fully understand. EX: mercury
Many ornamental saltwater fish are kept in aquariums and other types of fish are kept in large public aquariums very successfully. I enjoyed this hobby for many years. Corals are also kept in this way.
Seaweed is a component of sushi, which conveniently also contains fish. Seaweed also absorbs nitrogen a major component in fish waste.
Salt, sea salt in particular is a common seasoning. However if sea salt is made from evaporated ocean waters wouldn't it also contain the heavy metals already in sea water.
Synthetic sea salts exist, I am not sure if they are mixed from constituent parts. I believe they could be.
With an advanced lab one could monitor the levels of many if not all of the trace minerals in a tank and dose each as needed to maintain a balance.
The Plan (and some more facts):
Create a three tank system.
1. Tank one would have the fish you where raising for eventual consumption.
Preferably choose a fish that is under strict or complete commercial limitation and is also a high priced fish in restaurants and possibly sushi bars.
2. Tank two would be a media of some sort for nitrification bacteria to colonize. (bio balls)
3. Tank three would have seaweed that is commonly used in sushi.
The lab could monitor the levels of trace minerals and salinity with the use of instruments and tests. When a mineral or minerals where found deficient they could be added to maintain adequate levels. When water replacement became necessary because of gross imbalance in mineral levels or inadequacy of monitoring, the water removed could be evaporated in pans to provide (1) evaporative cooling for the tanks and (2) synthetic heavy metal free sea salt.
Feed fish, harvest sea weed, harvest fish and sell to sushi and other seafood stores and as fish food for home aquarists. Rinsing sea weed before packaging will most likely reveal many arthropods and other organisms provided the tank has been well seeded with microbiology. As long as the sea weed is not harvested all at once these organisms will repopulate as the sea weed does, thus the rinsed of organisms can be added directly to the fish tank as food. The fish would obviously be fed and this would be the nutrient source for the algae. If the content of nitrogen was a concern in the synthetic sea salt from water changes it could be held in the algae tank in order that it could be broken down.
This would require quite a bit of R&D which would be best guided by someone with a strong background in large scale fish husbandry such as a large public aquarium. An engineer and/or chemist might also be needed for the lab and tank design.
One of the companies or universities that produce synthetic sea salts would be a likely partner such as Instant Ocean or Red Sea.
Another partner could be one of the black sludge/mineral mud (sounds worse than it is) purveyors who have been trying to pioneer the algae filter idea.
Admittedly this idea is somewhat fanciful, but so is raising multiple ornamental reef fish and corals in my living room. I've done it in the living room, I believe it could be possible on a large scale.
The challenges (and costs) are large but the ability to offer a fish or fishes that are banned from sale in an environmentally sensitive way will have yuppy sushi eating hippies throwing money at you. You might also sign up quite a few health food nuts as offering mercury free fish is a huge plus.
~idearator
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