Aquarium of the Pacific Pics!!!!

Wow man. Thanks for posting these pics. These definitely qualify as reef porn. Those jellyfish pics are astounding.

Are there more?

Karma to ya for taking the time!!

 

Here's the last of the reef and coral pics. It's taking a long tiime to organize and upload these, so I need a break.

I'll get the "Behind the Scenes" pics up for you next BMSHEHAN. There's some goodies there.

 

Great thread!!!!

The flashy jellyfish are typically called comb jellies. Their technical name is Ctenophore (the C is silent....ten O 4).

There is one interesting fact about this aquarium that most wouldn't know. I'm explaining this because it will help people understand the industry a little better. Inside LAX there is a street (104th street to be exact) that is nothing but companies that supply our hobby. On occasion, they'll receive a coral that is illegal to sell. These companies obviously freak out and want them out of their care as soon as possible and a donation is quickly made. As a result, many of the corals you saw cannot be legally owned by most hobbyists.

I didn't even know they had a coldwater reef section because I've never personally visited. The Catalina Gobies and Strawberry Anemones prove otherwise.

 

Awesome pics.. Thanks for taking the time to share them with us...

 

I'm ready to see a really big skimmer

 

Ok here it is. Everything from HUGE sand-filled filters and ozone reactors in the "back yard", to some roof-top shots of Long Beach palm trees, to the room on the third floor above the display tanks. You'll see the diving suits, hospital/quarantine tanks, some shots of tangs and a barracuda from above the tank, and even some real plastic coral.

First, some baby sea horses in the back room:



And even the aquarium has a yellow tang that's not doing so hot in that hospital tank.



And a big protein skimmer for Dan:

 

More to come still....

So I know most of their corals in my pics above were real, but I guess it's too hard to keep all live coral in their fish-only tanks. These brought back the reality of how hard it is to keep coral, espcially in a tank that deep... But their lighting is still no joke - I can't afford it for sure.

 

Here's some shots of the fish from above in the room over the big display tank. Yes, I have a video clip too that shows how loud it is in there ...later, later. We had to step in these shallow bleach/water trays to clean the bottoms of our shoes before going in here. We also got to feed some nori to the tangs.

 

The tours were groups no more than 10 people. For the extra $5 for the behind the scenes tour, it was definitely worth it.

Just one of me.



Shark egg.



Some of the hospital/QT tanks make ours look "tiny". But those are sharks. Leopard sharks or bamboo sharks, I don't remember honestly.