Filtration System and Quarantine

Thursday 

I spent all day behind the scenes with the Aquarists working to help clean and maintain the many filters that clean the water in all of the tanks. The filtration process is extremely complicated and it was hard to keep up with all of the different methods and how they work. Regardless, I helped Ray to clean the protein skimmers so that they would work more efficiently to rid the water from any debris and fish feces. It was pretty gross to look at, but that means that its doing its job which makes the fish very happy! I also spent a little time in the water quality lab testing for levels of iodine and chlorine in the live coral exhibit to make sure that the water is healthy for the coral and the fish. It was really cool to see how it was done because it was just like simple chemistry labs that we've done in class (eg. Bohr Titration to test for chlorine)!

I also got to spend time looking around in the saltwater and freshwater quarantine rooms where some of the animals that aren't on display are held. Ray explained that the animals that are in quarantine could be there for several reason, mainly if they are sick, or if they are new to the aquarium. New animals go through a 30 day quarantine process to help acclimate them to the aquarium life and to make sure they are healthy enough to be put on display with the other animals. So during the 30 days, the animals on quarantine are given medicine that will help to destroy and internal/external parasites or any unhealthy bacteria that could make them or the other animals sick. Luckily, there were only a few animals that were sick! The majority of the animals that were in the quarantine tanks were new animals that were given to the aquarium as gifts or through a trade!