Aquarium

Seawater system

The MBA houses a state-of-the-art seawater, animal holding and experimental facility for marine biological research that complies with Home Office standards. There are two large semi-recirculating systems supplied by natural seawater via a permanent pipeline from Plymouth Sound. There is a wide range of tanks for vertebrate and invertebrate husbandry and experimentation.

Currently the seawater laboratory covers an area of 492 m2 and holds upwards of 50 tanks ranging from small volume aquaria to large specialist holding tanks. The scientific areas supported by the systems all have piped seawater and fall into three main categories:

(1) The Research System comprises a large research room exposed to natural light and two smaller tank rooms with photoperiod control. These are supplied by chilled seawater from a 145,000 litre reservoir. Biological filtration is also available on this system. There are several very large tanks on this system, many fitted with computer-linked video observation for behavioural studies. There is also space devoted to close-culture tanks for breeding studies and supply of embryonic dogfish and cuttlefish. Small volume aquaria on wet benches are also available.

(2) The Aquarium System comprises a large research room supplied with unfiltered seawater from a 332,000 litre reservoir. The system is not temperature controlled and has photoperiod control. The room contains four large holding tanks, several wet benches with small volume aquaria, several medium sized holding tanks and facilities for running small, closed-system aquaria.

(3) Three constant temperature (CT) rooms cover a combined area of 40 m2 and are also fitted with photoperiod control. Wet benches connected to the re-circulating supply with flexible small-tank space for close-controlled research make up the seawater facilities within each of these rooms.