This bacterium has been isolated from dead anu 

 dying blue crabs from Chesapeake Bay and was 

 isolated from dead and dying cultured shrimp taken 

 from Texas A&M University's ponds. 



Several other universities, including Oregon 

 State. Miami. Rhode Island, and Washington, have 

 programs in marine pathology in which both w ild and 

 cultured animals are being studied. While it will be 

 difficult, if not impossible, to solve disease and 

 parasitic problems in wild populations, this work 

 could lead to solutions of problems with pathogens 

 encountered in aquaculture. 



NEW AQUACULTURE SITES 



Two projects are underway at the University of 

 California to explore the potential of selected envi- 

 ronments for aquaculture. The first, at the Santa 

 Barbara campus, involves the study of a California 

 coastal lagoon to determine its usefulness as a man- 

 ageable ecosystem for aquaculture. The inves- 

 tigators believe that it may be possible to increase 

 productivity by shortening the normal food chains, 

 reducing predation and/or artificially fertilizing this 

 ecosystem. Initial efforts are devoted to a study of 

 the basic ecology of the lagoon, including 

 meteorological measurements, physicochemical de- 

 terminations, and biological sampling. 



The second, at the Scripps Institution of 

 Oceanography, is examining the feasibility of a 

 large-scale seafood production unit utilizing the nu- 

 trients contained in deep oceanic waters to enrich a 

 marine food chain. The pilot study is being carried 

 out on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 

 where the deep water may be brought up by drilling 

 into the coral reef rather than by using a submerged 



pipe. Work is in progress toward establishingecolog- 

 ical and productivity baselines on the trophic sys- 

 tems in two nuclear craters that are washed over by 

 the tides and have become invaded with marine or- 

 ganisms. In preparation, moreover, are efforts to 

 assess the water yield capacity of the reef and what 

 changes the nutrients undergo during the seawater"s 

 passage through the coral formation. 



In a somewhat related program, a team of scien- 

 tists from the Lamont-Doherty Geological Obser- 

 vatory of Columbia University is working on St. 

 Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands to demonstrate the 

 feasibility of using deep, cold ocean water for 

 aquaculture and. later, for other uses. The total sys- 

 tem could involve multi-usage of the water: sea 

 thermal power production by the Claude process, air 

 conditioning, ice-making, cooling of electric power 

 and desalination plants to avoid thermal and brine 

 pollution, and condensation of atmospheric mois- 

 ture for freshwater production. The experimental 

 work to date, however, has been restricted to the 

 aquaculture portion of the total system. 



A pilot-plant operation was established in which 

 water was pumped into small ponds from a depth of 

 830 m through an 1 .800-m long polyethylene pipeline 

 of 7.5-cm internal diameter. The ponds are used to 

 grow diatoms (mainly Cyclotella nana ) which are fed 

 into tanks containing trays of Eastern oysters, Cras- 

 sostrea virginica, and hard shell clams. Mercenaria 

 mercenaria. Results to date have shown the system 

 to produce unusually fast growth rates for both types 

 of shellfish. However, some oyster mortalities have 

 been experienced. The culture of other types of sea- 

 food organisms utilizing this technique will be ex- 

 amined later and an expanded experimental system 

 is planned. 



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