Facilities

MARF has a team of dedicated staff with 33 years’ experience to assist in all facets of aquarium system design, construction and maintenance.

Staff can assist and advise on the most appropriate selection of tanks, instrumentation and sensors, pumps and life support system components for each system. Where practical the use of existing equipment, tanks and infrastructure can be utilised in order to minimise the cost of experimental system.

Onsite workshop provides convenient access to a vast array of PVC and poly fittings and pipe at wholesale prices. Staff are able to assist in the construction of custom PVC and Acrylic tanks in addition to design and construction all other system components.

At the heart of the facility is the Direct Digital Control (DDC) system which monitors all aquaria within the facility 24/7, sending on-call staff Alarms to notify them of system irregularities or issues. Numerous sensors provide ‘live’ data on system parameters and can be downloaded and stored on SQL server for future analysis.

System automation can be achieved on many levels including photo-period, diurnal fluctuations in temperature and pH, simulated weather events such as tidal inundation and flushing of tanks.

Staff pride themselves on their ability to design and create experimental systems made to best suit researchers needs.

Aquarium system builds and advice

Currently the facility has research systems running that cater for:

• Hypoxic swim trials
• Testing of forecast pH levels as an effect of Ocean Acidification
• Replication of diurnal temperature fluctuations to a tolerance of (±0.01˚C)
• Seasonal conditioning of broodstock
• Specialised larval rearing systems for both teleosts and crustaceans