WORLDS LARGEST AQUARIUM:
GEORGIA, ATLANTA
The world’s largest aquarium is located in Atlanta, Georgia. It houses more than 120,000 animals, representing 500 species in 8.5 million gallons of water. There are 60 different habitats with 12,000 square feet of viewing windows, and it cost $290 million to build.
Georgia Aquarium was the result of the vision of one enterprising businessman Bernard Marcus, who dreamed of presenting Atlanta with an aquarium that would encourage both education and economic growth. Marcus was so inspired by aquariums that after visiting 56 of them in 13 countries with his wife, he donated $250 million toward what was to become Georgia Aquarium. Additional $40 million came in as corporate donations. The land was donated by the Coca Cola Company.
The Georgia Aquarium has five separate galleries arranged around a central atrium. They are Georgia Explorer, Tropical Diver, Ocean Voyager, Cold-Water Quest and River Scout. Tanks within the galleries house a diverse population of animals, including whales, sharks, penguins, otters, electric eels, rays, seahorses, sea stars, crabs and a variety of fish of all sizes.
The Ocean Voyager tank, the largest habitat, holds three-fourths of the aquarium's water and the aquarium's central attraction – the whale shark. A slow-moving conveyor belt takes visitors through a 100-foot acrylic tunnel under the tank, letting them view the fish from below. Other aquarium exhibits include the 800,000 gallon beluga whale enclosure, smaller tanks and multiple touch tanks where visitors can get hands-on experience with aquatic animals.
Building and running such a huge complex is no easy task. The organization employs hundreds of staff that take care of everything from feeding the animals to cleaning the tanks, assisted by many dozens of computers that monitors tank levels, temperatures and pumping flow, all of which are critical to animal health and system operation.
Below are some statistics that will give you an idea of the scale of operation in this gigantic facility:
- To fill the tanks, the aquarium pipes 8 million gallons of ordinary tap water mixed with 1.5 million pounds of salt to make it saline.
- 218 pumps, 141 sand filters and 70 protein skimmers keep the tank waters clean and habitable. These pumps move 261,000 gallons of water per minute. The tank turnover time -- the amount of time it takes for all the water in a tank to be filtered and cleaned – is two hours.
- To store food for the animals, the aquarium has a freezer that holds 20,000 pounds of food as well as a refrigerator that holds 6,000 pounds.
- To treat sick animals, the Georgia Aquarium has a veterinary services and conservation medicine facility in a 5,800 square foot unit with 15 people on staff, and it houses 26 treatment tanks (think hospital beds). The unit is fully equipped with a surgery and radiography unit with endoscopy, ultrasound and x-ray machines.
The Georgia Aquarium contains between 100,000 and 120,000 fish and other sea creatures, representing more than five hundred species.
The Aquarium is the only institution outside of Asia housing whale sharks, which are kept in a 6.3-million-US-gallon (24,000 m3) tank—the Aquarium as a whole was designed around the whale shark exhibit. Their importation from Taiwan (by air, truck, and boat) had never been attempted previously. They were taken from Taiwan's annual fishing kill quota, under which they would have been eaten had they not been purchased by the Aquarium. The Aquarium's most famous specimens were four young whale sharks from Taiwan named Ralph, Norton, Alice, and Trixie, after the primary characters from The Honeymooners. Ralph and Norton died in 2007 but that same year the Aquarium received two more whale sharks ("Taroko", commemorating Taroko Gorge National Park, and "Yushan" after Taiwan's Jade Mountain) just before a ban on capture of that species took effect.
When Georgia exhibited great hammerhead sharks, it was one of only two aquaria in the United States with this species.
The aquarium has also been home to as many as five 11-foot (3 m) beluga whales at once. Males Nico and Gasper, acquired from Mexico, were joined by three females on breeding loan from the New York Aquarium: Marina, Natasha, and her daughter, Maris. After Gasper and Marina died in 2007, the belugas were transferred to SeaWorld San Antonio where Nico died in 2009. In 2010 Maris and a new male, Beethoven, were returned to the Aquarium while Natasha remains with a potential mate in San Antonio. Two young belugas, Grayson (male) and Qinu (female), also from San Antonio, were added in November 2010.
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