Dr. Andrew Rhyne, assistant professor of biology at Roger Williams University and the New England Aquarium will head training workshops for almost 20 aquarists at the RWU aquaculture facility. The training will focus on successful fish breeding practices for aquariums in order to stock their own tanks with captive bred fish, which will in turn reduce the necessity to collect fish from the wild. The $221,382 grant will fund fish breeding workshops at RWU for three years beginning sometime around January 2013.

“We’re very interested in increasing the capacity of public aquariums across the country – the world, really – to be able to rear the fish they have on exhibit in their own facilities,” Dr. Rhyne says. “This grant is designed to facilitate that capacity through an educational component.”

Much of what Dr. Rhyne’s instruction will focus on is derived from the University’s marine biology courses covering development from eggs through the various larval and juvenile stages until the fish reaches adulthood.  Each stage requires very specific nutritional care and husbandry skills and for successful breeding, aquarists need to master each one.

Once the training is finished, the aquarists will continue to keep in contact with RWU through dedicated forums and message boards in order to help troubleshoot problems, answer questions, or possibly discuss new techniques and technologies for fish breeding.

Thank you to Dr. Andrew Rhyne for bringing this to our attention.

(via Roger Williams University)