Re: NANFA-- visit to VTU

Todd Crail (farmertodd_at_buckeye-express.com)
Sat, 6 Mar 2004 11:13:38 -0500

Man, some great things are going on! Great work Chris, Bob, Leo and Jeremy
(he posted his AFS story to the BOD list)!!!!

Looks like I'm going to have an opportunity to get into the Inner City with
some native fish. A good friend of mine is the Honors director at the
University of Toledo... Her seniors' education project is at an Inner City
elementary, and did a Finding Nemo kind of theme with the kids. They wanted
to do a freshwater tank and I was asked to help out with that... But guess
what ol' Famertodd is gonna drop in there? We don't need no stinkin'
heaters! :)

Inner City kiddos and Honors Seniors. What a great audience! I'm excited!
:)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Scharpf" <ichthos_at_comcast.net>
To: "NANFA e-mail list" <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 6:29 PM
Subject: NANFA-- visit to VTU

> Tuesday and Wednesday I had the pleasure of being an invited guest of the
> Virginia Tech Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. Tuesday night I
> gave my slide presentation on North American freshwater fish diversity to
an
> appreciative audience. On Wednesday I had an hour-long meeting with one
the
> fisheries professors discussing ways to increase awareness of our
beleagured
> natives. (Some of you may recall that VTU produced the stunning "Swimming
in
> Troubled Waters" poster and video a few years back.)
>
> 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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