Equipment in aquarium

The Marine Research Aquarium is equipped with flowing seawater, environmental rooms, and laboratory equipment enabling scientists to conduct experiments with marine organisms under carefully controlled conditions. Seawater is supplied to all three buildings in the complex from the Pump House located on the GSO dock about 200 meters from the main building. Water the from the Pump House is fed to two header tanks where large particulates settle out from the water prior to entering the main building. Researchers may obtain unfiltered seawater at ambient bay temperatures or filtered seawater (30 µm) that has been passed through Baker Hydro high rate industrial media filters. The ambient filtered water (fsw) may be mixed with heated (in the winter) or chilled (in the summer) fsw to obtain desired temperatures for experiments.

The facility contains six environmental rooms located on the ground level of the aquarium building. Four are new, state-of-the-art environmental chambers (100 sq. ft each) that can be supplied with flowing seawater. In addition, there are two smaller (50 sq. ft) Sherer Dual Jet temperature control rooms that can maintain temperature at 0 degrees C.

General laboratory equipment available at the facility include: numerous high-quality dissecting and compound microscopes, scales and microbalances, drying ovens and muffle furnaces, several small temperature controlled incubators for small scale culture work, and five fume hoods located in various labs that provide safety for those working with volatile organic compounds. There are several additional pieces of laboratory equipment at the facility available to scientists to assist in their research.
-The aquarium building maintains a 144 sq. ft, –25 degrees C, walk-in freezer used for storing biological samples, fish feed, ice cores, and sediment samples.
-There is a 30 cubic ft Castle autoclave, which is used for sterilizing seawater for large volume phytoplankton cultures for rearing larval fish and zooplankton, as well as for harmful algal bloom work, and bio-prospecting for novel compounds.
-A Carlo Erba NA1500 CN elemental analyzer is also available and capable of analyzing carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur content of plant and animal tissue.
-A Coulter Multisizer particle analyzer, which can determine the number, size, and volume of particles in a seawater sample, has proven to be a very useful tool for researchers. It is routinely used for enumerating and sizing phytoplankton from experiments and field samples.
-A mobile incubator allows researchers to seamlessly transport sensitive experimental animals from offshore to the lab.
-There are three temperature controlled plankton wheels available for zooplankton feeding and growth studies.