Inland Aquaculture – Murray Cod Australia LTD

Service Area: Galvanizing | Industry Type:

Project Overview

Murray Cod Australia required a world-first fully freshwater immersible, modular, and transportable solution of ten round floating aquaculture systems, aeration platforms, and winch trusses to replace its previous rectangular design that relied on paint coatings and pre-galvanized steel. A job perfectly suited to J. Furphy & Sons Group Albury team. Collaborating closely on segmentation, venting and draining to allow clean single dipping of the trusses, the outcome was a world-first galvanized aquaculture platform. The structure tripled the asset’s life cycle versus the previous coating, eliminated ongoing corrosion maintenance, and enabled 100% water recycling for adjacent crop irrigation.

The Challenge

The modular round floating platforms exceeded the working dimensions of a single dip, requiring our Albury team, Commins Enterprises, and the client to collaborate on a segmented platform design that could be double-dipped (which leaves a visibly inferior finish) without compromising structural integrity – a critical engineering process that needed resolving before fabrication could begin. Getting the venting calculations right was essential. Incorrect placement risked trapped zinc, blow-outs in the kettle, or coating defects, and had to be balanced against the trusses’ structural loads. The completed round platforms and aeration assemblies were also large and awkwardly shaped, creating real risk of in-transit damage and freight inefficiency on the run from Albury to Stanbridge.

Inland Aquaculture – Murray Cod Australia LTD Gallery

Our Solution

Working alongside fabricator Commins Enterprises and Murray Cod Australia, we delivered hot dip galvanizing services to AS/NZS 4680, and scoped and covered all structural elements of the new round floating aquaculture systems including the platform rings, and aeration framing and winch trusses with full inside-and-outside corrosion protection. We engaged early in the design phase providing design-for-galvanizing input on segment sizing, joint geometry and weld access. Each segmented platform module was double-dipped using a controlled rotation sequence to achieve uniform coverage, while the winch trusses were vented and drained to allow single-dip processing for a cleaner aesthetic finish. All steel was prepared via standard chemical pretreatment before immersion in molten zinc at approximately 450 °C, producing a metallurgically bonded coating, ensuring the platform interiors and exteriors received equivalent protection which was a critical factor given the inability to inspect or recoat surfaces once the systems are in service. We worked closely with Commins Enterprises on a load-planning schedule that saw completed batches arrived at the kettle in the right sequence and could be dispatched directly into transport. We eliminated double-handling and provided protected packaging procedures and predictable arrival times on the long road haul to Stanbridge.

Technical Specifications

Materials

Structural steel

Coating

HDG

Standards

AS/NZS 4680

Features

Segmented
Vented
Double-dipped

The Outcome

This highly successful project delivered:

The world’s first fully freshwater immersible round floating aquaculture platform (award nominated)
A segmented double-dip & single dip strategy that delivered full protection with aesthetic finesse
Solutions managed end-to-end and delivered on time and on budget
A 3× life-cycle improvement over the prior system
Enablement of 100% recycling of pondage water for crop irrigation and pasture
Removal of repetitive manual maintenance tasks, reducing labour and WHS exposure