2013 Regional Aquatics Workshop "blog"

[gjbarord]

Hi Everyone,

 

I am attending another conference this week that I think will have plenty of beneficial information for everyone here. The conference is the Regional Aquatics Workshop, or RAW (www.rawconference.org) and is being held in Atlanta, GA and hosted by the Georgia Aquarium. Here is the link to the scheduled talks, http://rawconference.org/presentations.html

 

The first day of the meeting is tomorrow but I arrived today so I could fit in a whale shark/manta ray dive in the 6.3 million gallon tank at the aquarium. It was amazing!!!!!!!!!

 

Tomorrow is kind of the "soft" start date. The first day is mostly business meetings and things of that nature because we are all together only once a year, so we get a lot done while we are here. The primary talks start on Tuesday so I'll have a lot to post about the day of talks, including a talk by me about my current research.

 

Let me know if you have any questions, on anything, and I'll do my best to get them answered.

 

Greg

[diver]

I would like to know a little more about the Thursday talk about low cost, low maintenance in-house brine shrimp culture. Just want to find out if this is brand new info which could be shared with WAMAS broadly.

[gjbarord]

Hello Diver,

 

No problem. I'll let you know what the talk is about.

 

Greg

[matt]

If there are any interesting take sways in the Temperate Reef Tank presentation...please let us all know. Cheers...have fun

[Huly]

Sounds Awesome! Thanks!

 

I am interested in the following:

Tuesday- Ben LaBelle The Most Important Corals You Have Probably Never Heard Of

 

The brine shrimp, (or anything on copepods) or honestly any tidbits that you think would be interesting!

 

The GA Aquarium is awesome! Pez and I went behind the scenes with one of our best friends who is a Marine Biologist. AMAZING! Enjoy it!

[mling]

Maybe we should see if we can get RAW to hold a future workshop in the Washington area. They last held it in our area at the Baltimore Aqua in 1995. Maybe they can hold it at the Nat Zoo Invert area ?

[gjbarord]

Hi Everyone,

 

Internet has been a bit sketchy at my hotel. Actually sending this reply out using my not so smart, smart phone so it's a bit tricky with such a small screen.

 

So far, the conference has been great and I've been taking notes on all of the talks and when I can get on the internet, with a computer, I'll be sure to write up all of the notes for everyone. We have a behind the scenes tour of Georgia Aquarium right now but I should be able to update everything either tonight or early tomorrow morning.

 

Gotta love internet!

 

Greg

[Origami]

Greg, I sent you an email via GMail on your application which was approved yesterday. Congratulations.

 

Tom

[gjbarord]

Tom, I just got the email!! Thank you and WAMAS!!! Things have been better with technology, my computer is not acting normally and my cell phone is 100% broken. Luckily, pen and paper always work so I can and still have been taking notes for everyone and will get that up here as quickly as I can while trying to get everything working... ugh!

 

Greg

[gjbarord]

Finally have working internet again!! Here is a bit of the overall run down of each day. If anyone has any specific questions/comments on any specific talk, let me know.

 

Monday: The first day is mostly business meetings for the various groups within the community. For example, I am part of the Aquatic Invertebrate Taxon Advisory Group. We work on developing husbandry manuals and collection plans for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). There are several other groups for marine fishes and freshwater fishes. If anyone has any specific questions I can try to answer them about these groups.

 

Greg

[gjbarord]

Tuesday: First day of presentations covering conservation and animal training.

 

1 - Ocean Health and Conservation (Vice Admiral Dr. Conrad Lautenbacher)

Keynote talk about ocean conservation and the primary threats to ocean life now, like marine debris, overfishing, sea level rise, invasive species, ocean acidification, human population rise... Great start to the conference!

 

2 - Great White Shark at Monterey (Manny Ezcurra and Paul Clarkson)

Focused on the great white shark program at Monterey Bay Aquarium and the history and future direction of it. A total of 6 sharks have been used in the program and has yielded information on husbandry, behavior, and migratory patterns.

 

3 - Sawfish in Aquaria (Paula Carlson)

Update on the sawfish project and programs in aquariums and the many conservation and breeding efforts

 

4 - Marine Zoning in Florida (Ben Daughtry)

Updates on new laws and zoning for fish collection in Florida

 

5 - Whale Shark Aggregations (Al Dove)

Work conducted in Yucatan, Mexico called Project Domino to determine where, why, and how whale sharks are making mass groups in these areas. Some groups are as big as 150 and are accompanied by nearly 100 "ecotourism" boats sometimes, which is beginning to be a problem.

 

6 - Project Piaba Update (Scott Dowd)

A lot of great work on this project can be found with a quick google search, so I am told. Upcoming awareness from it is a new movie coming out called "finding dory".

 

7 - Blood Analysis of Wild Sandtiger Sharks (Tonya Clauss)

The sand tiger is a species of concern under NMFS and also vulnerabls under American Fisheries Society. Blood was collected from 158 sharks. Tracking units and other data was also collected.

 

8 - Life of Nautiluses (Greg Barord)

Update on the recent conservation efforts of nautiluses.

 

9 - Corals You've Never Heard of (Ben LaBelle)

Talk centered around deep sea corals, primarily found in Alaska, that are also facing conservation problems. Deep sea corals serve the same purpose as shallow corals and provide habitat and food for the deep sea and commercial fishes. Take home message was for scientists and aquarists to work together and possibly begin displaying some of the deep sea corals and present the conservation message as well.

 

10 - Transport of Atlantic Tunas (Forrest Young)

The talk described the successful transport of tunas from the USA to Asia and the difficulties of the trip, which was an eventual success.

 

11 - Whale Shark Behavior Modification (Alex Collier)

A behavioral program was successful employed to eliminate stereotypic behavior in a whale shark.

 

12 - Octopus Enrichment (Kristen Simmons)

Through the use of a very strange contraption, giant Pacific octopuses were able to "paint" which served as enrichment at the aquarium. The paintings were also painted by other artists to have the first octopus/human combined artwork.

 

13 - Conditioning of Lesser Devil Ray (Mollie Getson)

Discusses the difficulties of feeding and training a lesser devil ray at the Georgia Aquarium which eventually were successful.

 

14 - Conditioning of Arapaima (Rich Terrell)

The Arapaima gigas is CITES II and was trained to feed at a station to monitor diet and weight.

 

First day was great and started off conference well. I'll post successive days in separate posts.

[gjbarord]

I hope everyone is feeling better than me. Strep throat is no fun!

 

Wednesday:Second day of presentations covering animal health and natural disaster preparations

 

1 - Lazy Nettle Syndrome (Sharyl Crossley)

Talk centered on a condition termed "lazy nettle" in Atlantic sea nettles (jellyfish). Condition is diagnosed by tangled tentacles/arms, no contractions of bell, loss of feeding tentacles, and slow movement. Once the jellyfish showed symptoms, it was not possible to reverse it and the jellyfish eventually expired but the addition of an omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, was successful in preventing the condition in new jellyfish.

 

2 - Spironucleus vortens in Discus (Nathan Farnau)

Discus experience an infection of the Spironucleus vortens that is typified by scale loss, head lesions, and weight loss, also known as HLLE (head and lateral line erosion). Sampling of the specimens showed the Spironucleus vortens present in gut. A treatment protocol of metronidazole, medicated food, baths, and tube feeding was employed. The discus were successfully treated using a catheter to administer food and medication directly in the gut. Even with the anesthesia and handling required, the discus did not show any negative effects.

 

3 - Wet mount preparation (Robert Jones)

This was a great talk delivered through Skype from Dr. Jones who was in Australia. The talk focused on the proper way to make wet mount slides of samples and what to look for from skin scrapes to gill mounts.

 

4 - Black spot disease in California spiny lobster (Julie Crawford)

Black spot shell disease is common in all crustaceans. Here, the condition was successfully treated in a lobster. The first sign of the problem was a small black spot on the tail which migrated forward. Malachite green has been used on this condition, but is unavailable in California so was not used. Instead, the lobster was treated with MinnFinn (hydrogen peroxide active ingredient) and was applied to the lesioned areas. The MinnFinn cleared the erosion on the tail and finally to induce molting, a high calcium diet was given to the lobster. The lobster molted within 2 months and the shell had no signs of lesions.

 

5 - Ovariectomy in Dasyatis americana (Becca Gangler)

Southern stingrays (Dasyatis americana) are prone to over reproduction in captivity requiring some type of management for the collections. In this case, rather than using birth control contraceptives, the ovaries were removed from females to improve animal health. It was successful and with the use of ultrasound technology in the future, should continue to be used.

 

6 - Coelomic Distension in Manta alfredi (Tonya Clauss)

A female manta ray (Manta alfredi) suffered an impact while breaching on exhibit. The specimen still had normal behavior, normal blood work, but an ultrasound showed slight bruising but nothing to warrant treatment. Later, an exam showed a lot of sand in the gut as a result of some of the behaviors changing and was typified by a "pot belly". To bind the sand, metameusel was given to the ray. After another follow up exam, nothing was improving, so the ray was given yunnan paiyo, iron dextran, and vitamin B complex. Additionally, physical barriers were placed on exhibit to limit the amount of sand the ray would uptake. After everything, the health of the ray improved and she is doing fine.

 

7,8,9 - Natural Disaster Preparedness

I grouped these three talks together because they all focused on natural disaster recovery in aquariums. Specifically, the talks were about Jenkinson's Aquarium in New Jersey and the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn after Superstorm Sandy.

 

Another great day of talks. Any questions?

 

Greg

[Origami]

I hope everyone is feeling better than me. Strep throat is no fun!

 

 

2 - Spironucleus vortens in Discus (Nathan Farnau)

Discus experience an infection of the Spironucleus vortens that is typified by scale loss, head lesions, and weight loss, also known as HLLE (head and lateral line erosion). Sampling of the specimens showed the Spironucleus vortens present in gut. A treatment protocol of metronidazole, medicated food, baths, and tube feeding was employed. The discus were successfully treated using a catheter to administer food and medication directly in the gut. Even with the anesthesia and handling required, the discus did not show any negative effects.

 

Another great day of talks. Any questions?

 

I hope that you're feeling better soon.

 

Regarding the HLLE in Discus. I wonder if there are plans to study whether the same gut bacteria are present in marine fish suffering similar symptoms, and if a similar treatment protocol is effective. Also, since activated carbon seems to be implicated (or at least correlated) with HLLE in marine fish, I wonder how the connection between the disease and bacteria / carbon is made. Thoughts?

[gjbarord]

Thursday: Third day of presentations covering exhibitry, propagation, management, and professional development.

 

1 - Two New Octopus species on Display (Marisa Avila)

Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco has two new species of octopus, the coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) and a larger pacific striped octopus (currently undescribed). The talk was about their collection, by the aquarium themselves, and their display and husbandry at the aquarium. If anyone is going to San Francisco, you will not be disappointed!!

 

2 - Live Kelp in an Aquarium? (Chris Okamoto)

The Cabrillo Aquarium has an exhibit that allows guests to walk under a kelp mat like it would be found in the ocean. The exhibit shows the kelp with all of the various species of plants and animals that live within the kelp.

 

3 - Temperate Reef Tank (Mako Fukuwa)

Cold water reef tanks are even harder than warm water reef tanks but can be as good, if not better and more dynamic. The major differences between warm and temperate reef tanks is the amount of food and lighting. Temperate reef tanks require much more food and much less light.

 

4 - Update on Coral Reef Tank in Steinhart (Charles Delbeek)

Another reason to visit Steinhart is their coral reef tank which is one of the largest and deepest living coral reef exhibits in the world. It has been going for 5 years now and Charles provided an update on growth and some challenges. There are over 1500 fish, 800 living plants/anenomes/giant clams/corals, and 212,000 gallons.

 

5 - Gut Retention in Elasmos

The project was to determine gut retention times in various elasmobranchs using iron oxide capsules in sand tigers, nurse sharks, white tips, and bonnetheads. The sand tiger had a gut retention time of 31 hours maximum and the different types of sharks, obligate ventilators and non-obligate ventilators differed in their gut retention times. It also turned out that if there was increased food availability, the gut retention time decreased. This work is important for administering medications and also feeding in captivity and wild settings.

 

6 - Captive Spawning/Rearing of Arctic Cod (Danny Kent)

Arctic cod are an important food source for beluga whales and are the most abundant food source in the food web. A total of 4 adult fish were collected from Cornwallis Island in the Arctic and brought to the aquarium. The eggs were fertilized and kept at 3 C and hatched at day 29. They were fed rotifers which worked! On day 136, the diet was switched to dead food. Overall, 500-600 juveniles survived out of about 1000. Next time, pellet food will be added with the live food to increase the feeding chances on dead food when the switch is made.

 

7 - Reprodcution of Heterodontus portusjacksoni (Elsa Santos)

The Port Jackson shark (Heterodontus portusjacksoni) was successfully reproduced in captivity. About 10-16 eggs are laid each time and take approximately 12 months to hatch. Captive egg cases of port jackson sharks are harder in captivity so the egg cases were cut open so the juvenile sharks could escape. The juveniles were pole fed first, which took a long time, but finally they started eating.

 

8 - Brine Shrimp Culture (Shelley Anthony)

Brine shrimp cultured in tubes with no special lights and ambient temperatures. The salinity, however, was raised from 35 ppt to 65-70 ppt!! using regular salt!! The cultures were fed 2 times per day ONLY unbleached enriched flour at 3-4 days, spirulina powder added.

 

9 - Ipads for Record Keeping (David Cochran)

This talk was about an aquarium using Ipads for record keeping to save on paper, time, and to be more efficient by having active updates. There were pros and cons but it was an interesting new method.

 

10 - Fish Tattoos to ID Fish (Megan Olhasso)

How do you identify fish in a large exhibit? How do you ID invertebrates? This aquarium tried a new method of fish tattoos on starfish by using an actual tattoo artist to tattoo black dots on the ventral side of the starfish for ID purposes. The methods worked well and will enable better care in the future.

 

11 - Cepahlopods National Standards of Care (Nell Bekiares)

This talk focused on the need for a national set of guidelines for cephalopods in the US. Europe has adopted similar guidelines that are now limiting other countries that do not have an official set of guidelines. Good or bad, it was a good conversation started in something that may be coming to the US soon so that if we can be proactive, there will be no problems.

 

12 - Oregon Coast Community College Update (Chris Spaulding)

This college offers the first degrees in aquarium science and has been running for about 10 years. Great program! More information can be found on their website or please ask away here.

 

13 - Central Campus in Iowa (Kirk Embree)

From the high school side, a program was developed in Iowa to give high school students the opportunity to learn more about being an aquarist and marine biology in general. The students, once trained, actually run over 14,000 gallons of tanks in a campus. They come in each day of the week, every day of the year, and do various projects from coral propagation to clownfish breeding. Another great program!

 

14 - A New Intern Program (Becky Duchild)

A zoo started a new intern program that would better suit the zoo and the interns by increasing accountability and responsibility. The interns were provided more areas of responsibility to develop themselves and were also held more accountable as a result. So far, the program is working great.

 

15 - Making Science Work for You (Joao Correia)

A fish supplier (Flying Sharks) talked about their connection with research and the research projects they have funded and are a part of.

 

Diverse day of talks but all were great once again!

[gjbarord]

I hope that you're feeling better soon.

 

Regarding the HLLE in Discus. I wonder if there are plans to study whether the same gut bacteria are present in marine fish suffering similar symptoms, and if a similar treatment protocol is effective. Also, since activated carbon seems to be implicated (or at least correlated) with HLLE in marine fish, I wonder how the connection between the disease and bacteria / carbon is made. Thoughts?

 

I'm not sure what, if any, plans there are to look into HLLE. From my experience, it seems to be caused by many different things in many different species. I think it's a great point and I am going to pass this along to some friends in the aquarium field and see what the current thoughts are.

 

Greg

[gjbarord]

Getting the last day of talks in order as I type...

[gjbarord]

Friday: Fourth and last day of talks (half day)

 

1 - Acrylic buffing (Ramon Villaverde)

Presentation covering many different ways of buffing out scratches on acrylic displays in aquariums and the pros and cons of each method

 

2 - Parrotfish in the reef tank (Joe Yaiullo)

Joe wasn't able to make it to the conference, unless I really just spaced on the talk... but based on his abstract, his aquarium is experimenting with different parrotfish in the reef tanks that WON"T destroy the coral.

 

3 - River Giants (Thom Demas)

The Tennessee Aquarium has experimented with exhibits that stray away from the strict biogeographical aspect of species in a display, to better grab the attention of visitors and also relay important conservation messages. Take home: It's WORKING!

 

4 - 20 years of fish surveys in the Conasauga and Coosa River drainages (Patrick Rakes)

Conservation project focusing on the changes in fish distribution in this area over 20 years and specifically after the 2004 floods brought by Tropical Storm Ivan. Overall, the floods caused significant declines in fish abundance in many areas but some areas have started to rebound since the 2004. Lots of great pictures of freshwater fishes that aren't known to many people but are found throughout the area. Lots of different colors!!

 

The rest of the day was business talks and then everyone flying home...

[gjbarord]

There was also a poster session and while I didn't take notes on the posters, I have the abstracts and will list the titles if anyone wants more information. I talked to most of the authors and the posters were all pretty good. It was a new addition to RAW to have a dedicated poster session and I hope it continues.

 

Poster 1: Nutritional comparison of enriched diet items fed to syngnathids (Julie Eckert)

 

Poster 2: The perfect specimen: Ziva's Journey - Sea Turtle Rehab (Amy Hupp, Michelle Kaylor, Rachel Thomas)

 

Poster 3: A cautionary tale: Two Florida native seahorse species (Hippocampus erectus and Hippocampus reidi) produce hybrid (Nancy Pham)

 

Poster 4: The Georgia Sea Turtle Center: Rehabilitation, education, and research (Michelle Kaylor, Rachel Thomas, Amy Hupp)

 

Poster 5: Desensitization and training techniques employed in safe handling of a queensland grouper (Epinephelus lanceolatus) of transport out of a multispecies exhibit (Ashley Kidd)

 

Poster 6: Growing corals on trees: A new technique to better utilize all three dimensions of a tall coral propagation system (Steve Hartter)

 

Poster 7: Ephyra jellyfish as a new ecotoxicological tool for marine aquariums water quality evaluation (Silvia Lavorano)

 

Poster 8: Interchangeable fluidized bes and "charging stations" (Mike Daniel)

[gjbarord]

Overall, it was another great conference and my presentation actually ended up being selected as one of the "Best of RAW" talks so I will be giving the talk again at the annual Association of Zoos and Aquariums in September!!

 

Again, if anyone wants me to go more in depth on any talk, let me know. I have plenty more notes and plenty of contacts for anything I can't answer.

 

Thanks again to WAMAS for making this possible!

 

Greg

[CaptainRon]

 

Poster 6: Growing corals on trees: A new technique to better utilize all three dimensions of a tall coral propagation system (Steve Hartter)

 

 

What's this one about?

[gjbarord]

You know? I should have taken pictures!! Sorry about that.

 

Instead of just propagating corals on a 2D basis, ie, spread out on the bottom of something. He has constructed these "coral mobiles" that have several frags attached to each limb and are designed to move freely with the water flow of the tank. I'll email the author and ask if I can get the poster in a PDF or a picture of his setup.

 

I believe there is a coral restoration program in Florida doing a similar method to grow corals which was designed, I think, as a way to better withstand hurricanes and surges. I believe that program is doing well!

 

The aquarium application is designed to maximize the vertical dimension of a coral propagation system.

 

Did that answer your question?

 

Greg

[Origami]

^^Pictures would help see exactly what these trees look like, and how the concept is implemented.

[gjbarord]

Here is a pic of what is going on in Florida. It is similar to the aquarium application, just a bit larger. I'll also provide the link to where I found the pic.

 

http://www.fla-keys.com/news/news.cfm?sid=8664

 

[CaptainRon]

Yes, that and the picture certainly helped. Interesting idea. That'll be a fun little experiment in the frag tank someday.