Services

The Experimental Platform in Aquaculture (EPA) of the Université de Lorraine (UL), in Nancy (3 M€ of investment in 2014, 800 m²) is modern indoor infrastructure dedicated to research on freshwater (cold to tropical) fish culture adapted to the different fish developmental stages (eggs, larvae, juveniles and breeders).

EPA is composed of two Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) for eggs incubation, two RASs for larval rearing (5 tanks of 700 L each) and 16 individual, autonomous and identical RASs (tanks of 2m3) for juveniles and breeders, completed by a specific area (4 RASs of 1700 L each) for fish acclimation.

EPA also has a room with five independent hatcheries and a room (built in 2022) dedicated to the zebrafish with three zebrafish rearing systems, each with 50 aquaria. These facilities are all located in isotherm boxes to allow a very precise regulation and management of remotely controlled environmental factors (water temperature, photoperiod, light intensity, dawn and dusk simulation) with automatic archiving of data and automatic reporting of alarms for rapid and targeted action.

The facilities are supported by laboratories dedicated to carry out physiological, cellular, and molecular analysis and it is equipped with apparatus to perform analysis of sperm quality by CASA, microscopy, cells and organotypic culture, western blot and in-situ hybridization, gel electrophoresis, ELISA, enzymatic assays, microassays, HPLC, PCR and more. EPA has been awarded in 2019 Lorraine University Excellence (3 stars), the highest standard for research facilities.

PEA is mainly used in experiments related to the domestication of new freshwater fish species requiring optimization of the external factors for improving the rearing performances (e.g. larval rearing and growth, fish welfare, reproduction). The sophisticated automated control of these factors allows rigorous experiments with high level of traceability of the experimental features. It allows multifactorial studies in the framework of initial approach (screening) or more advanced approach (optimization of protocols). Around 3-5 international researchers per year work at the facility on average.

Support offered

Each user will be linked to a local group of researchers depending on the required technical and scientific skills (e.g. fish production, larval development, reproductive physiology, molecular biology). Together, they will discuss the schedule and organize the experiments by considering the research goal, the sampling strategy and the competences required. According to these discussions, it will be decided if access will be local or remote.

Office with internet communication is included. Users will receive support to obtain project authorizations for animal experimentation and technical support for the management of experimental projects. An animal keeper will be available to follow the progress of the experiments. An assistant engineer will supervise the schedule and monitor the quality of the experiments. To optimize the feasibility of the protocols and ensure the reliability of the results, most of the tasks will be automated using computerized real-time data monitoring. A report containing a description of the experiment and the scientific data obtained will be written after each experiment.

Modality of access

On average each user or user group is expected to stay between 5 and 30 days (20 on average) at the infrastructure and multiple stays are possible.

The combination of actual cost and unit cost will be used. The unit of access is defined as RAS/week.

• For eggs (hatchery), one project is expected to range between 4 and 16 units (i.e. 1 RAS during 4 weeks; 2 RAS during 8 weeks) and a maximum of 16 units per year.

• For larvae, one project is expected to range between 4 and 40 units (i.e., 1 RAS during 4 weeks; 10 RAS during 4 weeks) and a maximum of 40 units per year is authorized.

• For juveniles and breeders, one project is expected to range between 24 and 128 units (i.e. 6 RAS during 4 weeks; 16 RAS during 8 weeks) and a maximum of 200 units per year is authorized.

• Including the variety of RAS available, 72 RAS/week (units) would be used on average for each project, 72 being the average number of units counted for one typical project.

A typical TA consists of the continuous maintenance of the RAS, measurements of water quality and morpho-anatomic indices, organ and blood sampling, storage of samples and access to the lab 55 (biochemistry, molecular biology). All types of tanks of the EPA as well as the sampling room and the analytical lab may be used by the users.

The organization of the work will be co-managed by the user and the local researchers/technicians and the user’s degree of independence will depend on its skills. Together with the local researchers and technicians, the users will organize and carry out the fish sampling and/or will help to perform the lab analysis. If necessary, users will attend specific training courses to fit with the good practices regarding fish experimentation.