RESEARCH SYSTEMS

Oceans Design was contracted by Virginia Institute of Marine Science to design and install a system aimed at researching the impacts of rising CO2 and temperature in our oceans and marine species endemic to the area. The system utilized computer controls to manipulate CO2 levels, temperature, and salinity independently in 16 tanks. The system had several components to it including a brine mixing tank, sea water polishing system, cold and hot water loops, and delivery systems to provide recirculating and flow through water, CO2, Soda Ash treated air, all controlled by our monitoring and control system through a network of motorized valves and sensors. It's a one of kind system that we hope to expand upon to give researchers complete control over the environmental conditions they are trying to to replicate

At the UMASS Amherst Gloucester Marine Station in Gloucester Massachusetts Oceans Design installed 4 of it's recirculating fiberglass research racks with water tables. Each shelf has the capability of receiving recirculated filtered sea water which gives better control over temperature, filtered flow through sea water, or raw unfiltered sea water directly from the ocean. Our fiberglass racks are well constructed and won't deteriorate in the harsh salt water environment. The water tables are made from PVC and the filtration package features bag filtration for solids removal, a submerged biofilter for nitrification, a foam fractionator for dissolved solids removal, and a chiller/titanium heater for temperature control.

Amec Foster Wheeler is a company with offices world wide and employs over 30,000 employees. In the course of their business which entails project management and consultancy for projects such as mining, dam construction, etc. they have the need to determine environmental impacts for a variety of projects. Oceans Design was contracted to design and manufacture a research rack with water tables where different species could be studied. The rack to be located at Scripps Institute of Oceanography had to stand up to the corrosive elements associated with salt water, and treat all the discharge with heavy UV sterilization a particulate removal.

Meade National Fish hatchery located in Kansas contracted Oceans Design to manufacture an 8 tank recirculating research system for larval studies with bass. The tanks and filtration sump we're provided by our sister company Gemini Fiberglass. Each tank had a sliding PVC screen with 316 stainless steel mesh. The filtration strategy was very simplistic. Treat water for ammonia, temperature, and oxygen. We designed the system as two 4 tank modules to make the handling the systems easy for the customer. Everything was pre-plumbed, water tested, and outfitted with unions to make the set up very easy for the customer.

Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego CA is known worldwide for their work and efforts to both understand and protect our oceans. Some of the research they must do requires that the water discharged be treated to prevent anything but filtered sea water get discharged back to the ocean. Oceans design designed and installed at a system to be used in transgenic studies, for organisms that are being studied for their ability to
provide important medications
and antidotes for human disease.

The system consists of a variety of tanks on fiberglass racks with intense UV sterilization for both the incoming and out going sea water. Outgoing sea water must be filtered to 1 micron in size and is treated with a very high disinfection UV dose. A central PLC with a touch screen interface allows users to set temperatures for the different racks, monitor flow rates, and has the ability to accelerate or decelerate pump speed based on the amount of flow the system has to treat.

In case of a power outage the system is outfitted with a powerful battery backup that can continue to monitor the system and shut down the system so no water can exit the system without treatment. The computer system data logs all sensors, opens and closes valves as needed, monitors UV dose, and if any parameter is out of range, sends out an alarm notification by email and text to both researchers and facility staff.

Oceans Design was contracted by Scripps School of Medicine to design and build a small counter top research system to study tunicates and their ability to contribute to the development of medications that would help many people. The system is a 100% closed and includes six 8 gallon acrylic research tanks, a filtration system which includes solids removal, bio filtration, polishing filters, temperature control, and UV disinfection. Included was a feeding system consisting of a mixing plate to keep the fine feed suspended in the feed tank and a peristaltic pump to deliver the feed to each tank. Space was very limited and as a result everything had to be designed perfectly to maximize the the available space. Every relevant part of the room was modeled in SolidWorks as well as equipment, plumbing fixtures, and tank delivery mechanisms to assure the system would fit into the space and function as planned. With an error tolerance of +/- 1/4" everything fit perfectly.

The US Geological Assoc. in Yankton, South Dakota (USGS-Yankton) contracted Oceans Design to design and manufacture a 24 tank system that focused on temperature control fore-most. Each tank needed the capability to be held at an independent temper-ature from all others.

We designed a system that would recirculate the tank water to keep oxygen levels at an appropriate level and provided each tank with its own plate heat exchanger and controls to manipulate temperature. A 5 Ton heat pump was used to manipulate the water temperature within a temperature control tank and and circulated as either a loop of warm or cold water that was introduced to each plate heat exchanger on demand and controlled by an individual PLC at each tank.

Due to the extreme cold temperatures desired the fiberglass tanks we're manufactured by our sister company, Gemini Fiberglass, with 2" insulated walls.