Ever wonder what types of businesses produce or harvest fish in the Great Lakes? Or how you can find them? Take a five-minute tour of six different businesses you can find on the Great Lakes Fresh Fish Finder to discover the answer! Great Lakes Aquaculture Collaborative staff will visit farms producing fish for food, pond stocking, bait, fee fishing, and ornamentals, along with a commercial fishery, and followed by a Q&A with the operators.

Aquaculture is a growing industry in Ohio and the Great Lakes region, providing farm-raised seafood ranging from crawfish to walleye. And just like land-based farms, fish farmers spend a lot of time making sure their animals are healthy. Dr. Vipa Phuntumart and her team at Bowling Green State University have developed a method to detect Saprolegnia, a fungal-like pathogen that can result in an estimated loss of $40 million to U.S. aquaculture operations every year, in water samples from fish farms. This way, the fish can be treated with eco-friendly options before they show symptoms.

Walleye is an important Lake Erie species, supporting both commercial and recreational fisheries. Management agencies need ways to identify how local spawning populations contribute to the lake-wide fish population, so they can continue to keep Lake Erie’s walleye fisheries naturally reproducing and sustainable. Dr. Stuart Ludsin at The Ohio State University, with funding from the Harmful Algal Bloom Research Initiative, has developed a genetic tool that can differentiate between walleye from the eastern versus western basins of Lake Erie and successfully helped agencies to better understand the contributions of different spawning locations to the eastern basin’s commercial and recreational fisheries.

Algal toxins affect the liver, gastrointestinal system and kidneys, and may have a more severe effect in the context of pre-existing conditions. Dr. David Kennedy and Dr. Steven Haller at The University of Toledo, with funding from Ohio Sea Grant and the Harmful Algal Bloom Research Initiative, are examining these effects to help provide new guidelines for safe exposure levels to algal toxins for people with chronic illnesses. They also aim to develop new tests that can measure toxin exposure at very low levels, which can suppress common liver injury markers in some patients, and to create therapies to treat the organ damage caused by algal toxins.

Harmful algal bloom toxins are a common concern for people living along the Lake Erie shoreline, where drinking water is often drawn from the lake.

In addition to removing these toxins during water treatment, Ohioans may have another tool at their disposal: Dr. Glenn Lipscomb’s research, funded by the Harmful Algal Bloom Research Initiative, has shown that reverse osmosis membranes, an essential component of home water purification systems, can remove algal toxins from drinking water.

During harmful algal bloom season, algal toxins can be common in drinking water drawn from Lake Erie. Water treatment plants are well set up to manage this issue for their customers, and often use powdered activated carbon to remove toxins, but they lack data on proper dosage depending on toxin types, toxin concentration and water properties.

Join the Great Lakes Aquaculture Collaborative and Ohio Sea Grant for a free webinar to learn about grant and loan financing options for aspiring and experienced fish farmers.

Join the Great Lakes Aquaculture Collaborative and Ohio Sea Grant for a webinar about identifying fish health problems, what you can do on the farm to prevent and treat problems, and when to ask for help from a vet or diagnostics lab!

Ohio Sea Grant & Stone Lab will host NOAA's 2021 seasonal forecast for HABs in Lake Erie.