Fish lab

We carry out most of our our experimental studies in the Centre for Ecology and Conservation‘s fish lab.

We are supported by a fantastic team team of animal care technicians with vast aquatic experience. The technical team lead on animal husbandry and ensure the highest standards of animal welfare as well as helping with our research.

We have a mix of tank sizes on recirculating water supplied that are suitable for housing the larger fish such as swordtails. We also have some zebrafish housing systems with removeable tanks that work really well for for raising baby guppies.

As well as fish, the lab is also home to our colony of red cherry shrimp. This is an ornamental strain of Neocaridina heteropoda that has been selected for its red colouration. The wild-type is a muddy brown colour and is native to Eastern China and Northern Taiwan, although introduced populations have become established in many other places. It is really easy to keep and breed in captivity and we are developing it as an invertebrate model system for fundamental behavioural and genetic studies. Here’s our first preprint on the system which describes a study of personality variation. We also hope to use the shrimp as a model for some behavioural ecotoxicology … but we haven’t got there yet!