Establishing and maintaining a low-cost zebrafish breeding and behavioral research facility

The purpose of this paper is to describe how to establish and maintain a lo w-cost zebrafish facility that can be used for both teaching and research p urposes. The cost of the facility ranges from about $250 to $1,000, dependi ng on the size of the facility and the experiments that will be conducted. The facility plan presented here also has the advantage that it can be disa ssembled so that it need not function year-round. A detailed list of suppli es and materials is provided, along with detailed instructions on how to se t up and maintain the adult and breeding portions of the facility. Finally, there is discussion of some of the general uses of a zebrafish facility, i ncluding a variety of procedures that are currently being used in behaviora l research with this species.