Working with live jellyfish: a challenge during the last eight years

Abstract

5th International Jellyfish Bloom Symposium, 30 May to 3 June 2016, Barcelona.-- 1 pageJellyfish are fragile and poorly understood but amazing marine animals. Trying to create adequate technics to keep them alive and in good conditions in aquaria represents a great challenge. Moreover the interest for culture these animals has been significantly increasing in the last decades. Growing techniques with a scientific purpose are improving and in continuous evolution but private enterprises, as exhibition aquariums, have demonstrated an interest in maintaining jellyfish in tanks. Since 2007, the “Medusa” group of Barcelona dedicates a large part of his research to study some species of interest in captivity. Different aquaria and experimental setups have been developed in order to conduct experiments and to better understand their life cycles. Due to the location of the Marine Science Institute (Barcelona, next to the beach with direct access to the sea water) and also to the ability to build and to modify every part of the aquariums manually, we can integrate the knowledge learned during the years to adapt them depending on the needs of the animal´s biology or the experiment. This has allowed us to developed collaboration projects with research institutions and private companies. In this presentation we would like to share some of the challenges were faced and how we solved in order to stimulate future collaborationsPeer Reviewe