Book excerpt: This book provides, in one place, basic information and considerations necessary to plan, build and operate seawater systems for culturing purposes. It provides design, construction and operations guidance for seawater (salinities from freshwater to brine) systems with flow rates of 10-1,000 gallons (40-4,000 liters) per minute. While the book concentrates on general circumstances, situations and concepts, comprehensive referencing of text and annotated bibliographies are provided in critical technical areas to allow readers to pursue specialized areas of interest. This upgraded and expanded Second Edition contains a considerably increased number of numerical examples relative to the first edition to demonstrate practical applications of the concepts and presented data.