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Aquaculture
Development of Fish Farming
Beginnings in the 1960s – Since the early 1960s, trout eggs, especially marble trout eggs, were collected from the rivers in our area for artificial breeding purposes. The breeding took place in Ilirska Bistrica, later in Solkan, and partly also in Kobarid.
1989 – In 1989, we began artificial trout breeding in our own hatchery in Modrej near Vodivček.
1995 – Since 1995, breeding has also taken place at the Tolminka 1 fish farm in Tolmin, where in 1996 we stripped broodstock from our own genetically pure marble trout broodline for the first time. From the beginning, we primarily bred marble trout, and since 1994, exclusively marble trout. In 1996, we attempted to breed grayling and succeeded. Since then, we have regularly raised one-year-old grayling juveniles and, after 2000, also two- and three-year-old grayling.
2015 – In 2015, an additional fish farm, Tolminka 2, was built on the Tolminka River for breeding multi-year marble trout and grayling.
The hatcher Modrej
The hatchery is supplied with spring water from the Zapolje spring near Vodivček, which is of drinking water quality and maintains a constant temperature of 10 to 11 °C. The hatchery requires 7 liters per second of water for its operation. It has 64 m² of rearing area for half-year-old juveniles and 77 m² of rearing area for storing broodstock and rearing one-year-old juveniles.
The current rearing capacities allow for the incubation of up to 500,000 eggs and the annual rearing of 200,000 half-year-old marble trout juveniles and 30,000 one-year-old grayling juveniles. Annually, we also raise a similar number of trout juveniles, while for grayling juveniles, the highest number reared so far has been 25,000 per year.
Approximately half of the trout juveniles are released into breeding streams, while the other half are intended for one-year rearing at the Tolminka facility, and partly also in the hatchery itself.
Tolminka 2 Fish Farm (Faronika)
The new fish farm is located on the Tolminka River, near the confluence of the Soča and Tolminka rivers, but 1.1 km downstream from the smaller Tolminka 1 fish farm. A pipeline directs water from the upper to the lower fish farm and is permitted to use up to 400 liters per second.
Due to the possibility of obtaining funds from the EU Fishery Fund, the Tolmin Fishing Club established the company Faronika d.o.o. This company invested in the new fish farm, while it leased the hatchery in Modrej and the fish farm in Zalog from RD Tolmin. In this way, the entire breeding cycle of marble trout and grayling was completed.
The newest Faronika fish farm has 10 smaller and 4 larger pools, as well as a separate two-story building with service areas for the fish farm and fish processing facilities.
In addition, Faronika also breeds rainbow trout for stocking and brook char for table consumption. RD Tolmin can now obtain all the fish needed for stocking its rivers and streams directly from its own company.
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