The institute is conducting the project in association with the Univesity of Hawaii Sea Grant Program. Wash. Ocean Spar engineers helped install the cage, and the firm donated the mooring equipment, said Ocean Spar Pacific representative Rick Gaffney. It uses a framework of steel pipes connected by a super-strong synthetic mesh, and is moored by four huge anchors to a sandy bottom in 100 feet of water. A steel tube runs around its perimeter, which is 80 feet wide. The shape of the cage is two wide cones connected at their flat ends.
Researchers call it biconical.
Last April the Oceanic Institute pumped 70,000 moi fingerlings into the cage. The fish are fed daily through a tube that divers snag and bring to the surface. Divers are able to enter the cage through a zipper in the mesh. A crew is on hand about eight hours a day. One of the duties of the divers is to scrub marine growth off the mesh.