Wade Watanabe, research professor and aquaculture programme director, told that the group, currently operating out of the old Center for Marine Sciences building, will be shifting to a new Center for Marine Sciences in Myrtle Grove. He added that the aquaculture programme is very related to the facility on the beach, next to the municipal center, so it just doesn’t make sense for us to be at the Myrtle Grove facility, logistically, having to go back and forth that far to Wrightsville Beach.
According to him the nee center will provide laboratory space to support the research and development work in marine finfish aquaculture. The new facility will be strictly fish culture facilities such as tanks, water pumps, filters, etc. — specific to raising fish. Watanabe said that the top floor of the facility would provide approximately 2,600 square feet of space, which will serve multiple functions, including dry laboratories for microscopic work, analytical work on fish tissues and fish feeds, and water quality analysis.
At the new facility there will be a feed preparation area to prepare experimental diets for the fish on site, as well as a reception area, an office/computer room, break room and restrooms for both men and women. The area underneath the laboratory will hold hatchery tanks for raising fish from eggs through their juvenile stages. The main focused area of work is on algal research but the center has now shifted its focus and become primarily concerned with raising marine species of fish.
