Are there inherent problems in simulating marine environments, as compared to terrestrial systems?

Question

We cultivate a number of terrestrial organisms in greenhouses and stables where they live in completely artificial environments. This seems to extend far less to marine organisms, such as fish. Aquariums (especially the salt water variety) seem to be quite unstable and require a lot of maintenance, and commercial scale installations, like salmon farms, are set up in the ocean, rather than in a separate tank. Are there inherent difficulties in cultivating marine organisms, or is it just that mankind has not tried as hard as with land species?

Answer 1

Simulating marine environments is much more difficult for the following reasons:

1. Physical Factors
2. Fluid Dynamics
3. Marine systems are more complex and involve currents, changing tides and wave action while terrestrial systems only have to wind to take into account.
4. Physical and Chemical Conditions
5. The atmosphere does not undergoe extreme pressure changes, while its chemical composition is simpler and less variable compared to seawater.
6. Marine systems have temperature varying with season, water mixing and current flow. Salinity varies with season, weather, river input, and complex mixing patterns.
7. Water density varies with temperature & salinity
8. Pressure varies with depth
9. The factors listed above influence light penetration, nutrient distribution, organim movement and sound propogation.
10. Biological Interactions
11. Marine populations can be widely dispersed with larval development occuring over hundreds of miles while adults migrate great distances. Terrestrial populations have better defined boundries.
12. Marine food webs are very complex with diverse interactions between species and difficult to map. Simulating these interactions accurately requires detailed knowledge of trophic relationships.
13. Marine biogeochemical cycles, such as the carbon cycle and nutrient cycling are tightly coupled to physical processes, making them difficult to isolate and model.
14. In summary, simulating 3D marine environments is significantly more complex than simulating terrestrial systems due to the inherent three-dimensionality, complex fluid dynamics, and the biological complexities of the ocean.