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Underwater wonder
The $290-million Georgia Aquarium, with its 8-million gallons of water and 100,000 creatures, has made a big splash in a short time.
By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published April 16, 2006
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[Times photo: Bob Croslin]
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The aquarium, which opened in November, was designed to be a research and conservation center as well as a tourist magnet.
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ATLANTA -- A young woman stands in front of a small fish tank, her hand darting back and forth, up and down. She's trying to shoot a photo of an inchlong clown fish with her cell phone. It can be tough to focus on the details at the new Georgia Aquarium, where five beluga whales and 100,000 other marine creatures swim in 8-million gallons of water. The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, long considered the nation's largest indoor aquarium, has 20,000 animals in 5-million gallons. The Georgia Aquarium's largest tank, the Ocean Voyager, has a surface area as big as a football field. In its 6-million gallons of saltwater, two whale sharks sail through schools of silver rays and golden trevallies above a 100-foot-long acrylic tunnel filled with human spectators. Whale sharks are the largest species of fish on the planet; these two, Ralph and Norton, are youngsters almost 20 feet long. Fully grown, they could reach 40 feet, about as long as a school bus. Although they're an imposing presence, the whale sharks aren't just for show. The Georgia Aquarium was designed as a research and conservation center as well as a tourist attraction, and for the study of whale sharks, it has teamed with Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota (which also provided the two big hammerhead sharks in the Ocean Voyager tank). But this is most definitely a tourist attraction. The $290-million Georgia Aquarium opened its doors Nov. 23 and clocked 1-million visitors only 98 days later. The aquarium rises like a silvery ship amid high-rises and nearby Centennial Olympic Park. An hour after opening time on a cool Tuesday morning in April, hundreds of visitors waited in the large patio outside the entrance. Don't count on walking up and buying a ticket. Most tickets are sold in advance, with reservations for admission during a specific hour. You can stay all day once you get in. A troop of grade-school kids streams in, squealing to a halt at the first thing past the entrance. "It's the gift shop!" one hollers. "Nemo!" shout several more. It's not Nemo, but it might as well be. The aquarium's mascot, Deepo, is supposed to be a Garibaldi fish, but with his orange (but stripeless) body and googly eyes, represented in forms big and small in the two gift shops, on the screen of the 200-seat movie theater and elsewhere, he's a ringer for the wandering clown fish of Finding Nemo. The aquarium's 500,000-square-foot interior centers on a soaring central hall that lets visitors choose which of five surrounding galleries to tour. The restaurant, Cafe Aquaria, is also just off the central hall, serving burgers, pasta, salads and desserts (but no fish). The noise level is high, as it is in most parts of the building, but seating is plentiful. Each gallery has a theme park style entrance, with its sponsor's name (AirTran, SunTrust) prominently displayed. Inside, most passageways are dark, to focus attention on the brightly lit tanks. Window ledges are deep enough for kids to sit or stand on. Information about the animals on display is hit or miss. Some tanks have touch screens or traditional signs, but others have no information. At some locations, staffers fill in the blanks, explaining to visitors what they're looking at. The Georgia Explorer gallery is especially kid-friendly, with half a dozen touch tanks swimming with stingrays, bonnethead sharks, horseshoe and hermit crabs, starfish and more. There's also a multilevel playground complete with a two-story slide shaped like a right whale (a species whose journey to its calving grounds off the Georgia coast is featured in a short film in the exhibit's small theater). The River Scout gallery focuses on freshwater fish, with some tanks flowing overhead. The show stopper here is a tall tank of piranhas, which hover in a vertical formation, barely moving. "Are they even real?" one skeptic asks. "Stick your hand in there," his pal says. "Let's see." The big tank in the Tropical Diver gallery is a dazzling re-creation of a coral reef, complete with wave action and natural light from massive skylights. Thousands of jewel-colored fish shimmy and slip among the anemones and corals. In three smaller tanks, jellyfish undulate slowly. Unlike the richly seascaped reef tank, these are featureless, two black and one a blank, dreamy blue, so the lighting illuminates the translucent, intricate forms of the jellies. In the Cold Water Quest gallery, a tankful of Japanese spider crabs evokes another kind of dream. The huge crabs, with bodies as big as soccer balls and yardlong legs, sidle slowly through a cavelike space, no doubt inspiring a few nightmares. Cold Water Quest also features sea lions, sea otters and African black-footed penguins. But the stars of the show are the five beluga whales. With their muscular ivory bodies and Mona Lisa smiles, they are irresistibly charming. And they seem to know it, swooping over and over toward the big viewing window. At Ocean Voyager's big tank, based on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef off the coast of Mexico, visitors can watch sharks, rays and goliath grouper through an acrylic window 61 feet wide. A pair of workers in diving gear buffed the inside of the 2-foot-thick window, removing scratches made by the hides of the whale sharks as they brush against it. The tank can also be viewed from the clear tunnel that passes through its center. Visitors who want a look behind the scenes at the aquarium can schedule a one-hour guided tour for $50. The Aquatic Adventure tour includes a look at the aquarium commissary, which prepares 2,000 pounds of food daily, and the veterinary clinic. The tour winds through the system of tunnels under the aquarium, wide as a two-lane road. They are stacked with everything from pallets of soft drinks to 1-ton bags of Instant Ocean, a product sold in pet stores for making seawater in home aquariums. It took 750 of those bags to make the seawater in Ocean Voyager. A topside view of that massive tank is part of the tour, and if you're lucky you might arrive as staffers are feeding the whale sharks. If you're thinking Jaws, forget it. Despite their enormous size, whale sharks are plankton eaters and can't swallow anything bigger than a quarter. A woman sits in a small boat at the far side of the tank, while a man stands on a floating pier at the near side. Ralph and Norton, whose broad bodies are charcoal gray stylishly dotted and striped with silver and white, each take a side. The staffers fill long-handled scoops about the size of a bucket with krill and wave them over the water, and the sharks swim right up and open their yardwide mouths. Dinner is served. Colette Bancroft can be reached at (727) 893-8435 or bancroft@sptimes.com. A How the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta compares with the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, above: SEA CREATURES Florida Aquarium: 10,000 Georgia Aquarium: 100,000 GALLONS OF WATER Florida Aquarium: More than 1-million Georgia Aquarium: More than 8-million STAR ANIMALS Florida Aquarium: White alligator, on loan from Audubon Zoo in New Orleans; sand tiger sharks; leafy sea dragons Georgia Aquarium: Two whale sharks; five beluga whales; leafy sea dragons OPENING DATE Florida Aquarium: March 1995 Georgia Aquarium: November 2005 NUMBER OF VISITORS Florida Aquarium: More than 3.5-million Georgia Aquarium: More than 1-million FUNDING Florida Aquarium: $84-million bond issued by city of Tampa; the city acquired the aquarium in 1996. Georgia Aquarium: Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and his wife, Billi, donated more than $200-million of the $290-million cost. Coca-Cola donated 9 acres of the 20-acre site; corporate sponsors and private donors picked up the rest. ADULT ADMISSION Florida Aquarium: $17.95 Georgia Aquarium: $22.75 - COLETTE BANCROFT
[Last modified April 16, 2006, 07:57:12]
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