TransparentSea Farm

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TransparentSea Farm

TransparentSea Farm is an aquaculture facility near San Diego, CA.

With foreign aquaculture silently producing over 95% of the shrimp we eat, isn't it time for some transparency in seafood?

04/22/2026

Warning scrollers: There’s math here, but I promise it’s powerful. Earth Day takes a back seat for most people, especially lately, but we believe the Earth is kind of all we have. Today is always a good day to remember why we toil. Follow me here:

While wild shrimp can taste delicious, the typical Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawl lasts 8-12 hours and pulls about 27kg/hour of shrimp. Typical bycatch rates exceed 5kg/m3, but let’s call it 5kg/m3. So, here’s the math: for 8 hour trawls, fishers pull a rough average of 200kg of shrimp and 1,000kg of other stuff 97-99% of which ends up pushed back overboard dead.

TransparentSea farm-quariums will produce around 75,000 kg per year at the new site, which will eliminate the need for 375 trawls, conservatively. Apples to apples, that means we will prevent 375,000 kilograms of other sea-life from dying annually. (To say nothing about habitat destroyed, gas used, stored seafloor carbon released, fishing nets lost/pollution).

We created TransparentSea to make trawling obsolete, with the goal to offer a better product with a tiny fraction of the footprint. Can’t wait to be back in the game soon with a bigger badder farm system ready to grow and scale.

03/10/2026

Been quiet on socials, but busy in real life… pretty excited to put this stuff back together in a way that supplies us baby shrimp for years and fills the biggest gap in the business case.

Shrimpin’ ain’t easy, eh?

01/27/2026

Interesting weather to endure while visiting the largest indoor lettuce farmers in the country. 10 acres of glass greenhouses at this one site. Out of respect, I didn’t take photos of the inside but holy cow, and CEO Paul have got lettuce dialed in. Good meetings in the Northeast, getting closer to launch.

01/18/2026

Meet the newest addition to the TransparentSea family!

Hailing from Mexicali, Mexico, weighing in at 28 pounds, meet Camarón 🦐(Cama for short)!Whether blazing new trails or finding already-dead rats, expect to see more of this lady and her brother at the ranch as we transform it.

01/12/2026

Who remembers our first and only farm dinner?! What you might not know is how it came to be. Here are just a few highlights.

I had floated the idea to busy chefs and fans of the business to host a dinner and tour on a Wednesday. From there, passionate people like Sam and Max, chefs like Eric, Gilberto, Chris and Juan leapt into action and wouldn’t let me back out of it. Heck Gilberto was even on the roof with his sounds system helping to set up instead of handling his fast exploding restaurant. We collaborated on a prawn forward menu that also featured fellow businesses, friends and supporters. We had the best people come out of the work to put on a Michelin level meal in a parking lot, and some of our biggest fans came out to enjoy it, capture it and learn.

Now that we are commercializing this technology and attacking this mission at a larger scale. Let’s see what kind of momentum we can build. Credit to for the video and for some action shots!

12/11/2025

So far, a few folks have visited and rung the old cattle bell that we inherited at the new ranch. All have agreed that it is a magical place that photos do not do justice. As we prepare to get the shrimp growing again, it’s past time to get back in touch with our people.

We’ve just launched a private fundraise, but have also set aside shares for our community to own a part of TransparentSea’s expansion on WeFunder! This will likely be limited but if interested in getting an early look, please send me your email address for more information. Investments start at $100, and you get actual shares in the company on the same terms as outside investors, not a tee shirt or picture of my dog eating shrimp.

Eventually we’ll go public with the link, but for now, you know how to reach me! We’d love feedback and to gauge interest. At some point next year, maybe you’ll ring the bell for the opening of the best shrimp farm in the world.

09/17/2025

It’s been a year. Professionally stuck in a sort of cocoon, at the whim of a new administration, abandoning previous plans (twice) and playing too much “wait and see” for my taste. It reminds me of when I started TransparentSea in 2020 just as the pandemic hit, wondering should I stay or should I go. Personally, this year coincided with turning 40 and acknowledging it’s been 7 years since I collected a guaranteed paycheck. I’ve been looking in the mirror and making big decisions, working side jobs and doubling down while the world spins madly.

That said, the cocoon is about to break. From 2020-2024, TransparentSea proved the technology, product-market fit, and ground-truthed numbers at the commercial pilot in Downey. Thanks to that effort, we have real knowledge of what it takes to be the first PROFITABLE, SCALABLE and fully recirculating aquaculture farming system in the U.S.

Speaking of Downey, leasing urban space for our ag tech business was always meant to be temporary. My family has patiently worked to own a ranch in 2025, ownership which will begin next week. Reach out if you’re looking to get involved in the fundraise or for upcoming roles in 2026.

To those who have reached out personally asking for shrimp or to tell me that you won’t eat shrimp until we are back… it has meant more than you know.
🦐 🔜🦋

08/20/2025

I’ve been sent this article several times in the past day, so I thought I might share it with some thoughts:

1. Cesium!? Wow! I’m familiar with reports of slave labor, antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria and viruses, but radioactive materials now?!

2. Media loves clicks. Don’t let this be the reason you totally stop eating seafood. Continue to eat your favorite seafood and even shrimp brands, but do a little research and shop the best you can. There are some decent products and seafood is greener than almost all other proteins.

3. What if we didn’t have rely on far off places, incredibly biased ‘expert’ people on LinkedIn or media to tell us what’s going on with our food? Sure, this has always been an idea people can get behind, but someone has to step up and make these products available and financially viable. We are getting close to putting down permanent roots again and making that possible.

I know it’s been a long haul, but announcements coming soon.

02/08/2025

This picture sort of summarizes what’s been going on lately, you could say. Storms, lemons, and something about making lemonade… I want to update y’all but also to ask the community for a favor, maybe a long shot. (Spoiler: It’s not money!)

In the Fall of 2024, we were quietly beginning to develop our first scaled farm site which seemed to be an exciting decision after 4 great years of the pilot farm. We were partnering with a family owned ranch just over the US border in Mexico so that we could get going right away. Post election, it seemed like an okay idea, but by January it became clear that this presidency will be historically unpredictable when it comes to foreign policy, and now it’s just not even an option.

As always, we face challenges head on and roll with the punches. I’ve spent the past few weeks looking at properties to buy in SoCal and will continue to do so until we find the right spot.

Here’s my ask: If you know farmers or landowners that aren’t using all of their ag land and would consider selling or renting 5-10 acres to be part of the shrimp farm of the future, please connect me with them! We are prioritizing Southern California in San Diego and southern Riverside county. I know it’s a long shot, but this IG community has helped build our business, so I figured why not give an update and let you in on the latest!

The Downey farm was amazing, but to make the difference we want to see in the world, we have to go bigger and more permanent. 🦐 ❤️ 🌎

11/19/2024

When we talk about our purpose and mission for TransparentSea, we don’t take our existence and role in this industry lightly. It’s not like we are making up shrimp farming from scratch, and it’s not like we will replace all other farmers…

Steve just returned from a trip to visit farms and feed mills in Vietnam, and then nutritionists, global business leaders and investors in Singapore. While phasing out the pilot and getting ready to commercialize, we joined the world’s foremost aquaculture business accelerator .blue Through Hatch’s team and the other company leaders, he spent dozens of hours learning how to be a better farmer, communicator, fundraiser and leader.

Just thought we’d share some photos, and the feeling of gratitude from trip. Traditional shrimp farming might have its issues at places and times, but it is rich in innovative problem solvers and good farmers. Though we aim to redefine shrimp farming, advance its efficiency and reduce its footprint dramatically, we acknowledge all the work and advancements that have come before us.

10/09/2024

That’s a wrap on our proof of concept farm in Downey. As Swiss army CEO, I just cleaned the toilets for the last time and and I pressure washed the place one last time.

From start to finish, that was the hardest 5 years of my professional life, but I’ve had a good life so no pity parties. Like any small business, we caught few breaks, and had mostly major challenges, but overall I’m starting to accept that we succeeded. We went from 0 to almost 8,000 followers on here totally organically, with many of you being chefs, customers or fans we can’t reach yet. We found out that even with insanely high urban costs and California city regulatory nonsense, this can be economically viable. We took our water recycling rate to 99.8% and learned how to improve our system, process and quality control. We got to put together a team (a few times), protocols and really see where we can improve. We appeared in magazines including the Economist, radio shows including NPR-KCRW and have a YouTube video made by that had over 4.5 MILLION views. We left the space wayyyy better than we found it. We’ve got a pile of interested investors and aspiring farmers who want to copy us. While the next project is set to resurface in 2025, we are positioned to drop costs by almost half at the next facility and really see where this can go. Can we give mangroves a real break, keep consumers healthier and more confident in their purchases, and work on become a cost effective option for traditional outdoor shrimp farming? Time will tell.

I’m grateful for my team members and all of our customers over the 3 plus years of sales. In hindsight, this probably should have failed quickly, but because you guys kept on buying, we had to keep growing them. Now we have to take it to the next level and see if we can put a dent in a problematic food production industry. Ta Ta for now, and keep the weird shrimp content coming.

Address

12510 Columbia Way
Downey, CA
90242

Website

http://www.transparentseafarm.com/

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