Field Trip With Stingrays & Sharks

     I'm officially about seven/eight months away from being caught up with this blog. To those of you that keep coming up to me and telling me how much you enjoy reading what I write, thank you. To those of you who insisted that I continue to write....

     Seriously, I do enjoy every moment of our hobby (except for any part of it that involves more money) but, I really got myself into something with this blog. Trying to plan our wedding, work, take care of four kids, teach one to drive (around her work schedule), plus this...what the hell was I thinking? A reality show would have been easier...

     So, it's March now. The public relations officer of CTARS has booked this awesome trip with the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk for a behind the scenes tour of the facility. Yes, yes! We are definitely going to this!! If anyone has ever been to the Mystic Aquarium, it's a bit of a letdown when you are into reefkeeping and I brought Chris to the Boston Aquarium a few years ago because the first (and only) time I went to it I thought it was soooo cool. Walking up that round aquarium in the middle was like, WOW! However, once you become a reefkeeper, these places become more of a letdown and seem more like a morgue for the corals you care so much about. A behind the scenes tour of an aquarium we haven't been to sounded fantastic and it was nice to see the club doing something proactive again. 

     Pretty much the very first thing we were brought to were the touch tanks. These were Chris' favorite part of the entire tour. They had two sharks and a shit ton of stingrays you could pretty much play with in this large tank. Aside from wanting to throw the little kids out of the way, this was really cool. 

This Photo Courtesy of Amber Purstell

     We were then brought over to see the octopus they have there and the jellyfish room. I don't have a good photo of the octopus but, the below picture is of tiny, tiny jellyfish in that container :)

     A beautiful tank leads us to the back of it where they explain how they switched over to LED's recently. Ugh! Hate LED's! This would explain the decline in any SPS in that tank. However, the RBTA's are magnificent. 

     We head over to the backroom of what I believe was some sort of large fresh water tank. I could be wrong and the pictures of the fish I have can't be distinguished between a fish or a blob. 

     Then we went over to the sea turtle tank. I liked this one. Everyone got to go up and watch them in small groups from the top of the tank. 

     I think everyone got a kick out of the valves on this monster skimmer. 

     Then over to the tank that houses the fish that have been found in Long Island Sound. 

     Behind it, this tank...

     Then off into the back room of the aquarium. In one or two spots you can look into these little holes and see a small portion of what we were able to experience. If you ever go there, look for them and take a peek!

     Finally to the shark tank...to the top to watch them feed!

     We hit a few other spots and I have more pictures but, they weren't amazing or just more blobs. These were the highlights of the tour (to me anyway) which is why I posted what I did. 

     Eighteen tons of salt are used at this aquarium each year. I can't even recall how many thousands of gallons of water they had running through the entire system but, it was amazing! It's certainly worth a visit if you ever get the chance.

     Once the tour was over Chris and I walked the entire facility (missing the meerkats dammit!) and then spent another hour petting the sharks and stingrays :)

     Until next time...

Like this blog? Subscribe!! Don't forget to post your comments too!