GA Aquarium Still Rocks My Socks off!

[kathainbowen]

..... sorry... I had to say it.

I just took over 200 photos there!!!!

I don't even know where I can host that many photos to even dream of sharing any!!! (*my hosting is going to freak!)



..... *sheepish* Sorry, carry on, go back about your business and what-not.

;D

 

[kathainbowen]

And... by the by.... I am highly terrified of what my own, personal tank is going to look like when I get back home.

 

[chase33]

glad to hear your visit was great. I plan to be there next Thursday and expect to enjoy.

 

[Phyl]

All you people going to the GA aquarium and not posting PICTURES (STEVE)! The Nerve!!


Where are Rich's "This thread is useless without pics" icons?!"

 

[panmanmatt]

 

[debfife]

You can have unlimited photos on Shutterfly

 

[kathainbowen]

.... well, I only just got back to NJ last night after hours of delays in Atlanta-Hartsfield!

It shall take me a little while to upload, especially since I use web optimization like a good little girl BEFORE uploading!

 

[GregW]

And... by the by.... I am highly terrified of what my own, personal tank is going to look like when I get back home.

so did the tank survive?

 

[kathainbowen]

And... by the by.... I am highly terrified of what my own, personal tank is going to look like when I get back home.

so did the tank survive?

Actually, yeah!

I'm pretty impressed by my mum. She managed to not kill anything, despite telling me the day before I left that she didn't know how to read a thermometer.

Ok, so, I noticed that the web optimization I did sucked, but, as promised, here's SOME of pics from the aquarium. Please bear with the bits of fuzziness. I just figured not 'raping the bandwidth' would be the best thing to do.

Ah, a word of warning. Don't bring lighters, gum, or outside food to the aquarium, because they will actually take it away. And, the bigger word of warning, ride the MARTA if you can. Yeah, the trains smell like bandaides, but it's better than paying for parking in Midtown. This picture was taken within a block of Centennnial Olympic Park.

The ever fab Miss Beth outside the aquarium in Centennial Olympic Park. If you ever are in Tropiquarium and hear a 22 year old girl making "fish eating noises," that's me, and the habit came from her. Beth likes fat animals and making their eating noises.

When you enter, there are two large tanks flanking one another, just filled with these guys! At this point, my flash accidentally made them look radioactive, but radioactivity was a weird theme of the day for Beth and I.

Alright, this tank came out a little weird in photo. It's actually just inside the aquarium at the gift shop entrance. What makes it so strange and cool is the fact that it's a reef fish tank, but with strange, glass baubles instead of coral. Unfortunately, I really wanted a pick of the Semilavartus butterflies in it, along with the big Sohal tang, but they refused to come much lower. Cool concept, but I'm not certain how well a Venetian glass Fortress of Solitude is really the best home for reef fish.

Ah, the shark touch tank, which would have been very fun, if the previously mentioned Beth was no terrified of touching the sharks and if children wouldn't try to grab the fins of the shark I finally convinced her to pet. It jumped, she jumped on me, and we both almost fell into the tank.

So cool! Especially to pet! Even if you can just find them on our beaches!!!

Behold, white coral and radioactive snow crabs! They're absolutely ginormous! Beth got a pick of a 4 year old boy standing by the tank, and the crabs were about as big as he was!

So, I'm really sad. I had been telling my former manager, the Danny, about Tropiquarium and, although they could never copy anything of that store (*no space), he just wanted to see it. So, I brought my camera and dropped it on the ground by accident while juggling my water containers. And RIGHT after I figured out how to take macro pics with it!!!! There were many coldwater anemone photos, but I liked this one the best. And by the way... when they say "the water's cold," they REALLY mean it. 50-55 degrees!!! Brrr!!!! But still fun.... and again, the Beth was a squealing girl.

Ah, the elusive giant octopus. We saw only your tentacles, but that didn't stop your tank from being awesome with anemones, huge starfish, urchins (*which Beth loved because they "had little hats" with the shells they'd picked up), and some pretty cool fish.

So pretty!!! Almost makes me want to have a coldwater reef! .... almost.

Ok, so here's the problem with Beth and I going to the aquarium. We both used to work in a reef store with a really, really strict manager about husbandry. What does this mean? It means we spot things like this.... dead fish. It's mighty humbling to see the Georgia Aquarium, which is supposed to be one of the most advanced public aquariums in America, have dead fish.

What can say? I'm a sucker for animals that look like plushie toys.

Beth is unimpressed with otter poop floating by.

By the way.... did you know sea lions move really fast?

They were so pretty, and one of them is an utter ham, swimming in big circles around the front pane endlessly, getting right up close to people, like it knows it's photo-op time. The other two were just chillin'...... no pun intended.

Ah, the Ocean Voyager. How I love and loathe you at the same time. How I love your grand size, scale, and unique structure..... but oh how I wish I could see you set up like a big reef tank. Think of how cool it would be to see grand schools of butterflies and tangs in that big of a tank! But this is the most awesome of awesome parts of the aquarium- a tunnel running right through the tank. What makes it even cooler is that faux rocks are sculpted around the tunnel so you can't see the huge viewing window on the other side of the tank and so smaller fish and the rays come in for close-up, and there are fans over the tunnel disturbing the surfacec so you don't see the equipment overhead! Ah, the joys of knowing the Alan and getting the behind-the-scenes scoop on the aquarium design.

..... by the way... yes, that is, in fact, a people mover on the left. So you can ride through the tunnel at a leisurely pace or, if you are like Beth and I, stop and take nine-million photos of.... everything. And, by the by, I had a ton of photos to wage through to pick my favorites. If you guys want, I'll post all photos later.

Last year, when it was just Ralph and Norton, and Beth and I went for the first time, the whale sharks didn't seem to go anywhere near the tunnel. This year, they weren't shy at all! Coming over every few moments!

Giant groupers have big mouths when they yawn and are much larger than they appear in photos. Much, much, much larger!

Incredibly marine diversity for a large, more temperate tank that seemed mainly focused on one star species.

And, a little teaser of the reef photos to buy me some more time to pick out cool photos and web optimize them. They have an entire field (*it seems) of garden eels! So cute and so cool!!! Not only were we looking at a species that are rarely kept, but there were hundreds of them in that tank! And, yes, that is a gratuitous racoon butterfly in the background there.






... *phew* time to optimize more photos!

 

[Brian]

Great Pics...and uhh..some crazy stories to go with it!

Let's see more!!

 

[kathainbowen]

Great Pics...and uhh..some crazy stories to go with it!

Let's see more!!

Whenever Beth and I get together, hilarity and chaos follows shortly behind. The day before, we had been planning to go to the aquarium, but her car desperately needed an oil change. So, we went to the Wal-Mart, where my poor friend, Chris, had to wrangle Beth and I as we wandered about, tried to get employees to hula-hoop with us, test drove bikes around, and had pillow fights.



.... yeah.... I would say that Beth and I should never be allowed anywhere without supervision, but that doesn't seem to work either.

 

[chase33]

Glad to hear you had a good time. I've heard so much about it and am scheduled to go tomorrow. Will also have pics. Can't wait!

 

[kathainbowen]

Let's see more!!

Well.... you asked for it.

For some reason, my camera focused really intently on a few of the fish and made them look like a botched photoshop job to add them. There are just so many bartletts anthias in there, and, since Beth loves pink and I love anthias, we needed a pic.... in retrospect, I recommend switching to manual focus.

Only I could go to an aquarium with over 8 million gallons of water and exotic fish from the world over and be fascinated by the diamond gobies you can find for $20 just about anywhere- even your local PetCo, I'd bet.

Aw, man, the jellyfish were awesome. Unfortunately for me but fortunate for your bandwidth, only photos of the sea nettles came out recognizable. The moon and comb jelly photos I took were like a trippy, 1960's drug inspired blur, which was SO not helped by the fact that the lighting in the moon jelly tank shifts colors every minute or so!

Bellydancers of the deep they are!

Ah, I love cuttlefish. Any animal that can change color AND texture for camo is cool in my book. Give them an almost spearing hunting technique, and they become utterly fascinating. We had one for a very brief time at my house after a tank raised one arrived by accident on an order at work... it was kind of like living with Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama (*complete with the weird sounds and noises since every visitor who saw the cuttlefish HAD to quote the show).

To my embarassment, though, my LFS training came out. A little girl was smacking the tank as hard as she could everytime this one cuttlefish came close, making it jump and change colors. Then, she'd wiggle her finger like a fish in distress, bait the cuttlefish over, lather, rinse, and repeat. The LFS employee in me told her to stop, but the cuttlefish lover in me had to admire the sudden changes and adaptations in patterning/coloring on the cuttlefish from the sudden stimuli... to my even deeper shame.

Alright, now, this was just glaringly silly husbandry. Take a good look at this tank and the sign posted overhead. If you're got keen eyes, you'll spot the issue. If not, you might need a second look. That's ok. Take your time. I'll be waiting in the next caption with the correct answer. *jeopardy music*

The correct answer is : where in the devil are the "orange clownfish" (perculas) and what the devil are those black saddleback clownfish doing in there?

If you got it right, you deserve a cookie.

It took a good search and Beth's clownfish loving nature to find the percs in that tank. They were huddled in a small group in a high corner of the tank. Anytime one of the percs would get daring enough to try to come down and out of the corner for the safety of one of the anemones (because there was a good bunch), the saddlebacks would all change them back up into the corner. Oh nos, poor little Nemos!

Beth and I exchanged strange glances but decided not to clue any of the people in around us about how Nemo wasn't "just playing" with the bigger "black clowns."

But that does bring me to an even more unusual thing that Beth and I found in the seahorse tank. What, what, what is that? Are my eyes playing tricks on me? I just wanted to shoot it full of Joe's Juice. I hate invasive anemones and hydroids, no matter where they are. Even when I see a display tank at a crappy pet store with just a small aiptasia, I want to nuke it. Danny trained me well to know that aiptasia must be eradicated without mercy... and the instinct to dispatch such awful little things on sight hasn't left me.




.... alright, enough stalling. May I present, something that makes up for all the little bad things we noticed in the most epic reef tank I have ever seen in my entire life.... the centerpiece of the Tropical Diver exhibit and, by far, one of my favorite tanks in sheer construction and design, complete with a growing mangrove section upstairs and out of sight from the public exccept on behind the scenes tours and school outings on the education loop....

Words just do not do this tank justice. To get to the reef tank, you go through an area with very subtle switchbacks for the cuttlefish and the jellyfish before turning a sharper corner onto a long, dark hall. The only light in the hall is coming from that (*or so it seems by some clever design), the big tank. You walk down the hall and, when you get through to the end, the glass goes over your head where waves crash down, before making an elegantly curving angle and going vertical to the ground. There is seating, to view the entire thing, but who wants to sit for long where there's just so much to see?!? The entire thing is wall to wall with faux coral as a base structure and filled with so many different kinds of fish! And, now, there are even some pretty neat colonies of real coral in there (*as opposed to last year when I went and was thoroughly disappointed by the live species in the tank)

To give you a better idea of what I mean by the structure. Simply breath-taking tank engineering.

The faux rock and coral even goes up the sides and along the entire back wall, making you feel like you're in a little cavern in the middle of the reef!

Waves going overhead. It's a little hard to see through the foam, but the tank is open to daylight overhead, like a greenhouse. However, it's also supplemented with several lights. We didn't get a chance to take the Alan Tour this time around (*he was very busy moving specimens that day), but last year, we went up there and it was incredible!

I don't think you can tell in this photo, but that rose bubble is bigger than my head. Like two to three times the size of my head. It could totally eat a person. But it's just so pretty!

Beth found the clownfish to be immensely cute in his giant mansion of an anemone, so she made me take almost dozens of photos for her. It was an all too gorgeous anemone so I was more than happy to do so.

Look, Halloween coughed up a fish! Sorry, the Achilles tang is just one of my favorite fish, and so rarely kept by hobbyists, let along a few of them and let along in that nice of condition!

Alright, so everyone else is being amazed by "Gill" (the moorish idols) and "Dories," especially the kids. And, then, I accidentally started a mini-tour. This happens sometimes when I'm at an aquarium. When there aren't any guides to be seen, and I start getting excited about something, people seem to gravitate towards me. And, in this case, I saw this little cleaner wrasse and his cleaning "station." I start taking photos and called Beth over to check out "this really friggin' cool thing." Suddenly, there is a group of six people coming over as well to see what the big deal is.

.... I should never be allowed in public aquariums.

But think about it?!? How many times do you see cleaner wrasses kept in aquariums and doing well, fat and happy? It was just very neat and impressive in a subtle way. Too bad those six random people who came charging over didn't see it the same way Beth and I did.

G.B.T.S.

Gratuitous Blue Tang Shot! Yes, with all of them swimming about, and all the yellow tangs, I ended up with several pointless tang pics. In fact, there's about twenty of just yellow tangs. Good thing I had a digital camer and not a traditional camera.








So, what did we learn?

1.) Traditional cameras are a waste.

2.) Bring multiple capture cards or one that's going to get you 200-500 pictures on it.

3.) Bring LOADS of batteries. Trust me. If you're like me, you'll end up taking so many pictures, the camera'll basically be on the entire time, and it'll run dead if you spend a few hours there. But, if you do forget, like I did, the gift shop does sell batteries.

4.) And, now that I web optimized and posted- I want to see your pics, too! But, please, for my cruddy DSL's sake, please either do your own web optimization or use Photoshop's "Save for Web" feature before you post!

 

[mikem]

Great photos. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Treadingwater]

Wow, now that looks like an aquarium worth making a special trip to see. Very nice pics. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Hawkeye]

awesome pics! thanks so much for sharing.

Even though I'm not convinced they know what they are doing with the whale sharks, if my family and i are even in atlanta - we'll definitely check out this place.

 

[kathainbowen]

awesome pics! thanks so much for sharing.

Even though I'm not convinced they know what they are doing with the whale sharks, if my family and i are even in atlanta - we'll definitely check out this place.

Thinsg were definitely looking up from last year. Thank heavens I didn't have a camera last year. We kept spotting ich, HLLE, and all sorts of other distasteful things. Things have much improved since then, and it looks like most everything is settling in nicely. This year, just two dead fish, some aiptasia, a couple of minor coral issues, the clownfish stupidity, and a bit of cyano here and there in the big reef tank (*but, honestly, at that large of a tank, I'm more than willing to be very forgiving with the cyano and chock it up to "it's still cycling two years later").

I must warn you.... it is mighty expensive for an aquarium (*$24 per adult!). Whenever I go, I still feel like we're seeing about the same amount of tanks as Camden or worse... Jenkinsons *shudder* and paying twice as much. But, should you go, apparently the website has started putting up buy-one-get-one-free tickets occasionally. Another visitor was kind enough to give us an extra one they'd printed!