The Experimental Platform in Aquaculture (EPA) of the Université de Lorraine (UL), in Nancy (3 M€ of investment in 2014, 800 m²) is a modern indoor infrastructure dedicated to research on freshwater (cold to tropical) fish culture adapted to the different fish developmental stages (eggs, larvae, juveniles and breeders).

EPA is composed of two Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) for egg incubation, two RASs for larval rearing (5 tanks of 700 L each) and 16 individual, autonomous and identical RASs (tanks of 2m3) for juveniles and breeders, completed by a specific area (4 RASs of 1700 L each) for fish acclimation.

EPA also has a room with five independent hatcheries and a room (built-in 2022) dedicated to the zebrafish with three zebrafish rearing systems, each with 50 aquaria. These facilities are all located in isotherm boxes to allow a very precise regulation and management of remotely controlled environmental factors (water temperature, photoperiod, light intensity, dawn and dusk simulation) with automatic archiving of data and automatic reporting of alarms for rapid and targeted action. The facilities are supported by laboratories dedicated to carrying out physiological, cellular, and molecular analysis and it is equipped with apparatus to perform analysis of sperm quality by CASA, microscopy, cells and organotypic culture, western blot and in-situ hybridization, gel electrophoresis, ELISA, enzymatic assays, microassays, HPLC, PCR and more.

PEA is mainly used in experiments related to the domestication of new freshwater fish species requiring optimization of the external factors for improving the rearing performances (e.g. larval rearing and growth, fish welfare, reproduction). The sophisticated automated control of these factors allows rigorous experiments with a high level of traceability of the experimental features. It allows multifactorial studies in the framework of an initial approach (screening) or a more advanced approach (optimization of protocols).