About MARFU

Discover what MARFU has to offer

Located at the JCU Townsville, Bebegu Yumba campus, MARFU features eight large recirculating marine water systems supplying outdoor, undercover, and indoor lab areas as well as twenty indoor temperature-controlled research labs, eleven of which have at least one or more dedicated recirculating life support systems (LSS) for high resolution or specifically modified research projects.

Over 1.4 million litres of seawater are continuously circulating through biological filters and bioremediation tanks to help maintain exceptional water quality.

Three separate aquarium compounds support 20 research laboratories with temperature and light control.

We provide both seawater and freshwater research systems.

There is a teaching facility on-site, equipped with a lecture theatre and adjacent wet lab that incorporates two recirculating life support systems.

A dedicated fibre-optic network, comprised of 26 Direct Digital Controllers (DDCs), provides all research spaces versatility and flexibility in terms of instrumentation, control, and automation. Any critical parameter can be monitored remotely via a webpage, logged to a secure database, and an alarm notification sent to on call staff if required.

Each controller features an embedded, HTML5 web interface—no plugins required—that enables real-time monitoring, trending, alarm management, data export, and scheduling via browser.

MARFU staff are on call 24/7 to resolve any issues.