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Aquaculture

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Research

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Facilities

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Facilities at the Aquaculture Research Station [Image: Aquaculture Research Station’s Pond Research Facility] [Image: Aquaculture Research Station’s Pools] [Image: Fish Nutrition Laboratory at the Aquaculture Research Station] Ponds and Pools The Aquaculture Research Station has 134 experimental ponds, ranging in size from 0.02 to 19.0 acres and totaling 50 surface water acres, and 200+ outdoor above-ground fiberglass pools/tanks. These outdoor facilities are used in research projects with crawfish, catfish, hybrid striped bass, tilapia, freshwate prawns and other species. Projects at the station involve research dealing with feeds and nutrition, genetics and breeding, water management, physiology, production systems, fish health and virtually every other discipline involved in commercial production of aquaculture species. The aquaculture research facility at the Rice Research Station, Crowley, Louisiana, about 90 west of the main campus in Baton Rouge and located in the heartland of Louisiana’s 130,000-crawfish aquaculture industry, has 24, 1-acre experimental crawfish ponds. Wet Labs The ARS has nearly 12,000 square feet of wet laboratories -- including a fish hatchery, fish holding facility and a greenhouse for overwintering tropical aquatic species -- that are dedicated to research in nutrition, fish genetics and breeding, water quality and toxicology and production systems. A wide variety of tanks, aquaria and recirculating systems are available to conduct research with a wide variety of both freshwater and marine finfishes, crustaceans and mollusks. The School of Veterinary Medicine has two wet laboratories assigned to fish disease research. The School of Veterinary Medicine also houses the Aquatic Diagnostic Laboratory, whose staff provides disease diagnosis and control measure recommendations to Louisiana’s commercial aquaculture industries and state agencies. Additional wet labs to support engineering research in aquaculture process control are located in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. The Rice Research Station has 1,600 square feet of wet laboratory space decidated to various facets of crawfish aquaculture research.

Posted on: 3/10/2006 9:43:19 AM