The Dr Dorothea Sandars and Irene Lee Churchill Fellowship to increase the knowledge of rearing Box and Irukandji jellyfish in captivity

My Fellowship took me to the USA to increase the knowledge of rearing Box and Irukandji jellyfish in captivity. Conclusions: It would appear that the techniques used by the USA and Japan have several things in common, such as the necessity to use kreisels to successfully rearing any type of jellyfish, however there are different techniques used in both countries that could usefully be combined to produce a more efficient and successful rearing strategy for jellyfish. In short, the America system is geared to produce large volumes of jellyfish but is very labour intensive. Conversely, the Japanese system is very technologically rich, but suffers from some parts of the rearing system that are very labour intensive (such as the collection of ephyra that is done by hand, unlike the USA system where they are mass harvested). By combining the use of new kriesel shapes and technology employed by the Japanese and the mass harvesting techniques used by the USA, I believe a much more efficient and successful system can be implemented. It is without doubt that the Japanese have made a quantum leap forward in rearing of cnidarians and it would appear that this has come about by them spending a lot of time first working out the general biology of the species that is to be reared. This was particularly evident in the Karmo aquarium where the director of the facilities promotes the idea that observations of what is happening in the cultures is very important and should be regularly reported. This is something that I believe is paramount in any aquarium system if cnidarian husbandry is to be successful in the long term. Overall, I felt that Australia has a far better understanding of the biology of box and Irukandji jellyfish and by using the techniques used for rearing other jellyfish in America and Japan that we can successfully rear these animals. Keywords: Jellyfish, Box Jellyfish, aquariums, rearing, husbandry, cubozoans, scyphozoans