Also on Wednesday I toured their aquaculture facility. One building houses
their endangered mussel breeding operation. They weren't breeding mussels
just yet (they need to wait until later in the spring to go out and collect
broodstock). But they were acclimating several tanks of darters (lots of
gilt darter), rainbow trout, and hogsuckers as hosts for the mussel
glochidia. It was interesting to see the lengths they were going through in
order to keep the water cool. They also grow LOTS of green water to feed the
mussels.
Another, larger building is where they're conducting several nutrition and
grow-out trials. One room had tank after tank of hatchery raised summer
flounder (the flounder served in restaurants and sold at seafood markets).
VTU is developing a prepared feed for the flounder, and are testing
different formula to see which one makes the flounder grow faster, bigger
and healthier. They're also experimenting with different color tanks (red,
blue, black, green, etc.) to see if one color or another facilitates the
growth of the color-sensitive fish. In fact, they were painting the tanks
while I was there. Imagine taking a 10-gallon tank and literally painting
it, glass and all.
A larger room, the size of a small warehouse, housed large fiberglass tanks
and raceways for aquaculture experiments involving cobia, tilapia, striped
bass, and yellow perch. One potential use of the yellow perch is for
eventual introduction into the Great Lakes (should the zebra mussel problem
ever be solved).
Other rooms housed horseshoe crabs and "golden" trout (an albino form of
rainbow trout that some anglers like to catch).
With an on-campus hotel, passionate and engergized faculty and students, and
nearby access to lots of great streams, it struck me that VTU would be a
perfect place for a NANFA convention. (VTU is in SW VA, about 30 min. south
of Roanoke.) In fact, the possibility was briefly discussed. (Hey, Mike
Thennet, would you be up for investigating the feasability of such? I can
give you more details offlist.)
Chris Scharpf
Baltimore
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