Graduate Student Carter Cyr.

I would like to introduce my two new M.S. students who will be working with Rising Tide.  The first is Isaac Lee who started his first semester this fall and is working towards his Master’s degree at the University of Florida’s Indian River Research and Education Center (IRREC).  Isaac received his B.A. degree in Biology from Colgate University in 2013.  He has had a passion for marine aquaria for years and over the past year he worked at the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead.  He learned about aquaculture of marine ornamentals and how to culture live food organisms.

Graduate Student Isaac Lee.

The second is Carter Cyr who also just started this fall and is working towards his Master’s degree at IRREC.  He received his B.S. degree in 2013 from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island where he majored in Marine Biology and worked as a research assistant working with marine ornamentals and live feeds.  He grew up in Southern Maine and has had a strong attachment to the aquarium hobby for as long as he can recall.  Over the past four years he developed a strong passion for aquaculture.

While they are at UF, they will focus their research efforts on culturing various marine ornamental fish species including broodstock reproduction, and defining optimal culture parameters and feeding regimes for all stages of development to produce market sized fish.  Additionally, AZA public aquaria around the U.S. will be shipping collected eggs from their exhibit tanks so we can also define optimal feeding and culture parameters.  Results will be shared with researchers and private producers to expand production of marine ornamental fishes.

We would like to thank Rising Tide for funding both of these graduate student positions.

Thank you,
Cortney Ohs, Ph.D.
Associate Professor – Aquaculture
University of Florida

New students contact information:

University of Florida
Indian River Research and Education Center

2199 South Rock Road
Fort Pierce, FL 34945
772-468-3922 ext. 135
email: ilee0913@ufl.edu
email: ccyr399@ufl.edu