The Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea has been awarded an Innovative Technology Grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The $736,000 grant will allow the Marine Lab to make major upgrades to the Aquarium's water filtration system that flows through the many tanks found at the facility housing sharks, sea turtles, octopuses, and all the other creatures.
The Marine lab said that with the funds they will install a one-of-a-kind filtration system that uses locally grown red algae to clean the water that flows through their tanks thereby reducing the amount of water that is drawn from and returned to Dickerson Bay.
The system will be designed in partnership with the FSU and FAMU College of Engineering with advisory support from experts at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Institute.
It will consist of a series of tanks that will be situated in a greenhouse to grow the algae, relying on the natural benefit of red algae to remove nitrogen and phosphorus from the water.
The algae grown in the tanks will then be used to feed the animals housed within the aquarium and and allow Gulf Specimen to explore other uses for the aquaculture byproduct.
The project is expected to take approximately three years to complete.
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