Location	Funding	Institution	Principal Investigator(s)
Hawaii	$99,999	University of Hawaii at Manoa and HDOA	Yong Li, PhD and Jenee Odani, PhD

Overall Goals
During the survey response from a previous CTSA funded project “Diagnosing Prevalent Diseases of Aquacultured Animals in Hawaii”, Hawaii’s cultured species are broad, including crustaceans, oysters, Chinese catfish, koi, and tilapia. We will need to acquire updated and in-depth disease concern details regarding each aquacultured commodity: freshwater fish vs. marine fish, food fish vs. ornamental fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. The best way to gather everyone’s input is to conduct a series of stakeholder meetings. A second goal develops a Best Management Practices manual, specifically for tilapia producers in hatchery management, while assessing the practicality of tilapia farmers meeting the cost of SPF testing. The third goal is producing probiotics using food-byproducts that can easily be obtained locally for potentially enhancing the health condition of tilapia, promoting their growth, and strengthening their disease resistance. The initial year-long study of local waste products could yield results that would justify implementing challenge studies in subsequent years. Lastly, it is our goal to expand the routine pathogen testing for Hawaii’s aquaculture farmers.

Objectives
1. Organize and conduct aquaculture stakeholder meetings to discuss what Hawaii producers want in terms of disease testing capabilities from UHADL.
2. Publish a Best Management Practices (BMP) hatchery manual for Hawaii tilapia producers.
3. Enhance the ability to detect and measure pathogens in the rearing environment, specifically the system surfaces (biofilms).
4. Maintain USDA approval for export testing for aquatic pathogens in shrimp, oysters, and cyprinids.
5. To culture probiotic bacteria in extracts from local food byproducts and investigate their antimicrobial properties.
6. Summarize results and disseminate information through the scientific community and in lay terms via classical extension and outreach activities (e.g., newsletter, technical handout, and workshop).