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Worlds Largest Aquarium (8,000,000 Gallons)- in Atlanta

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Vampyroteuthis
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Jul 10, 2005
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Just randomly found this place was opening on 23 November, its huge!!
The biggest tank is 6.2 million gallons and is for a whale shark. 100,000 animals and 12,000 square foot of veiwing windows. The big tanks' window is 2 foot thick and weight 185 tonnes.

I would love to see that!!!

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

imageExplore.jpg
 
actually, it could be a possibility for any future N.American TONMOcons given ease of getting to ATL... but their room fee looks steep... oh well, something to file away....
 
I was just there about three weeks ago, and I can't believe the place!:shock:

Granted, it's new, and whale sharks are pretty awesome, but they really let me down the GPO display, which is supposed to be the founders favorite animal in the ocean. Not only did it have a HORRIBLE :mad: :mad: tank with no place to hide, nothing to play with, but the only one they seem to be able to get is about 5 breaths from death. I've seen what they look like right before they die, droopy skin, really pale color all of the time, hardly ever moves. Really shocking after going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium all of the time.

Seems to me they should have spent a little more money on the displays, planning and educational aspects instead of spending and obviously HUGE wad on the architecture.:yuck: :yuck: There are these awful columns in the food area that have a swirly, metallic flake wallpaper, which would be OK in the right colors, but two of them are really, reallllly bright orange. And the floor looks like something out your grandmothers diner, with orange and white fish shape chairs that are even less comfortable than the ones I used in elementary school.

Now those whale sharks. Nothing against them, actually, but whoever designed, liked, and OKed the first FIVE viewing areas for that tank must have been bonkers. Let me give you a tour: The first one is about 10ft above eye level at the entrace to the exhibit. That one is OK, but only because I was lucky enough to see one the whale sharks swim by it when I first looked up to it. The second one has a massive rock right in front of it, and you can just barely see around it to bare sand, maybe a stingray, but hardly anything else. The second one is one of those bubble windows, with a massive rock right in front of it. The third one is another one of those bubbles, but this one is kinda on the ceiling, and nothing swam over it. The next one, kinda curves over the top so the water is in front and above you, but with ANOTHER MASSIVE ROCK right in front of it, COMPLETELY blocking the view. The next spot is one of those tunnel deals, which is the first time you can actually see more than a couple of fish. Sharks, a large school of cownose rays, both of the whale sharks, hammerheads, and lots of yellow travallys, stingrays to one side, which has, about 4 feet behind them, MORE MASSIVE ROCKS!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: ON BOTH SIDES!!!

The next on is the one that they talk about being so huge, holding back millions of gallons of water, 2 foot thick acrylic windows, whale sharks, most of the fish. But you can't know that at this point, and they want you to see into it yet. OOOOHHHHHHH, I get it, they want to show out of state visitors who have yet to experience Atlanta traffic what they have to look forward to. Because after going throught the tunnel, you come to a line of people blocking an entrance, from which you know something exciting is going on because you can hear a lot of people, a speaker telling the normal lame jokes, and light at the end of the tunnel. When you do finally squeeze into the room, you are confronted with a f**king fantastic view!! The size of the window in to the tank is massive, and you can see hundreds if not thousands of fish (60,000- 70,000 of which are all one species, yellow travally. Easy way to bost numbers of fish for publicity, which would be like the MBA counting it's sardines.) The whale sharks swim by majestically, schools of fish in tow, stingrays glide, humphead wrasses lazy about, potato cod and giant grouper. Really nice view, could sit there for hours, which is exactly what it feels like people are doing, because there is hardly a square foot to stand in, while the rest of the aquarium is spacious, even overly so is some areas. Why couldn't they spread some of that rapture out into the other windows??? Just a little, because you just rush past those, not because you know what's coming, but because you can't see a damn thing!!:hmm:

In there defense, it is an inland aquarium, so there is not the level of education about the oceans that you find on the coasts, so I guess to really pull people in you have to WOW them with something. Like the beluga whales, the only other exhibit in the whole place that had a volunteer to give a presentation or answer questions. A couple of them were resqued from a zoo in Mexico, which is awesome, with five total in the tank. Intelligent looking faces, blowing bubbles, eyeballing people in the window, playful creatures obviously. Really cool, very calming. So I was nearly on the floor laughing and crying at the same time when I heard one woman, of limited but haughty education say to her friend, with all seriousness, "That's where your caviar come from."

Suffice it to say, I think they have an uphill war to fight.
 
It seems like that they're really focusing on the large aquarium to the pont that the rest are being neglected..


And I can't believe that someone said that cavier comes from whales...:lol:
 
That's a real shame (:cry:). I've often wondered how the aquarium manages to feed these guys, as at certain times of the year we struggle to get enough plankton for our 'horses. I wonder if that contributed to his death (although apparently the others are doing fine).

J
 
I'll admit I was stoked to hear about the whale shark in captivity - I LOVE seeing unusual animals up-close (when I found out that the local zoo had some Patagonian cavies I practicially fell into their enclosure) - I have to admit that that this death bothers me a lot.

Sharks are fragile to begin with, and the Whale Shark is one of the less-understood members of this clade of fish...

Its sad, really. And didn't they just lose a beluga as well?
 
Fujisawas Sake;85882 said:
Its sad, really. And didn't they just lose a beluga as well?

one they rescued from a mexican theme park... so it mightve had issues before they ever had to put it to sleep....
 

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