Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 10, 1995 TAG: 9510100057
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
WHEN IT COMES to research, doctoral student Brian Brazil has a couple of fish tales to tell. And they're sad, very sad....
Brian Brazil headed down the twisting gravel road early that day, before the sun rose, just like he does most days. He had to go check on his fish - all 8,500 of them.
When he got to the Virginia Tech Aquaculture Research Facility, he noticed his adviser's car parked there. Hmm, he thought. Strange. Then he walked inside and saw the charred remains of what used to be his doctoral experiment.
"One of the saddest looks I've ever seen in my life," said Mark Kidd, the lab's technician.
They say that students who carry field research notebooks do well not to drop them into streams - imagine how you'd feel if your doctoral mainstays went up in a $250,000 fire just months before graduation.
"It's the shock of your life," said George Libey, a fisheries and wildlife science professor. "You've got three years of your life tied up in that project, and you come in and it's dying on the floor. There's nothing you can do."
Nearly a week after the early morning fire of Oct. 1, Brazil pointed to the tanks that held his tilapia fish. The previous day, he'd met with his academic advising committee, who agreed to try to help him through. He'll sit down in the coming weeks with the data he has, crunch the numbers to discern a theoretical trend, and perhaps work on a smaller, similar project in an effort to complete his degree in about the same amount of time.
You see, this isn't the first time Brazil's lost his fish. Last year, his hybrid striped bass succumbed to disease.
"We figured with tilapia being a hardier fish, we should be OK," said Brazil. "I think I've got the worst luck in the world.
Brazil's project is designed to help boost fish production for indoor aquaculture operations that use recirculating tanks. Specifically, he's been carefully measuring amounts of ozone added to the water to create oxygen, in the hopes of growing more, or healthier, fish.
"Organics can build up and stress the fish," he explained.
By injecting ozone, one can remove the organic waste.
Disasters aren't unknown to scientists working with live critters. Something invariably goes wrong, said Brian Murphy, department head for fisheries and wildlife science.
For instance, back at Texas A&M where he worked previously, Murphy knew a student who was measuring water quality in a lake as part of an experiment.
"A dam on the lake blew out in a storm, so the lake disappeared overnight," he said.
The early morning fire that destroyed Brazil's fish was discovered by a Virginia Tech police officer on routine patrol, Brazil said. Located off Plantation Road, the lab is well off the beaten path, and it's easy to imagine that the fire could have gone unnoticed far longer.
The fire apparently was caused by an electrical malfunction, said university spokesman Larry Hincker. It started in a small outbuilding that housed a generator; next door is the huge aluminum bay where the fish tanks were lined up. Sheets of blackened aluminum hang from a gaping hole now, and the odor of fish mingles with the charred smell of fire in the now-cleaned-out space.
Students came out that Sunday morning of the fire, ready to pitch in and help clean up. Some helped to measure Brazil's dying fish for further data collection before they were hauled to the incinerator, he said. Gavin Glenney, a master's student, had tankfuls of fish in the same room.
"We were able to save my fish," he said. "They were right next to the fire. I was surprised they lived. The tank was all charred."
Within a few weeks, Brazil should know where he stands with his thesis. By January, the burned section of building should be replaced. The good news for the doctoral student? At the worst, he'll postpone by only a few months his entry into a field that many believe is wide open.
Libey explained: "The human population's expanding. At least in the United States, we're eating more fish per capita every year. Almost any expert you want to talk to will tell you wild harvest fisheries are at or beyond maximum sustainable yield. In other words, we're going to need more fish, but we're not going to get them from natural fisheries.
"I guess that leaves us with aquaculture."
by CNB