Time to start a thread on Marine Life Park, S.E.A. Aquarium.
The Marine Life Park is very impressive and well worth a visit. Seeing an overview of the aquarium and reading brief descriptions of the sections admittedly resulted in me expecting a contender for "best aquarium in the world", a position IMO held by Okinawa for quite some years. It doesn't quite make it there, but it certainly is among the top aquaria in the world. On paper, it does look quite like a larger version of Okinawa: Larger ocean tank (~18 mio l), larger big shark tank (~3 mio l), larger general predators tank (~4 mio l), both with big coral tank, and both with deep water sections. However, for reasons described below, it mostly isn't:
- Large ocean tank: Somewhat smaller than Georgia's, but almost twice as large as the third largest aquarium in the world (there's a handful of aquaria at 8.5-10 mio l). However, due to the contruction, the ocean tank appears more like a big version of the 8.5-10 mio l. tanks than a somewhat smaller version of Georgia. This is, in part, because the large viewing window is placed on the longest side of the roughly rectangular tank, i.e. the rear wall, about 35 m away, is easily visible. (in Georgia, the large viewing window is on the smallest side of the roughly rectangular tank, i.e. the rear wall being much further away.) The viewing window is by far the largest in the world and the vista through it is impressive. No species really compares to the whale shark, but since that species appears to be entirely unlikely in SEA Aquarium, the manta is a decent substitute. There are four at present, but I believe they plan on getting more. There are also many more commonly displayed species of rays, groupers, etc.
- Shark Tank ("Shark Seas" aquarium): Crowded and currently contains mostly fairly small sharks. Unless something slipped my mind, I believe it also is the tank I've seen with the largest number of shark species. I do hope they'll consider moving the smallest species to other tanks where they shouldn't cause any major problems, leaving this tank as a top predator tank only (similar to Okinawa's shark tank).
- General predators tank ("Shipwreck" aquarium): Another very impressive tank and the shipwreck is done quite well. Mostly contains various medium-sized predators.
- Big coral tank ("Coral Garden" aquarium): A big cylindrical tank that contains numerous coral reef fish. With its name, I had expected this to be a big tank filled with living coral and fish, but SEA's living coral are generally located in other much smaller aquaria. As a consequence, they don't really have the "wow" feeling of Okinawa's or Burgers' big living coral tanks, and are also unlikely to get major coral spawing.
- "Ocean Journey": This part of the SEA contains a variety of aquaria such as jellyfish, but also the deep sea section. There is only really one deep sea aquarium which contains "standard" Japanese deep sea species such as Japanese spider crab, giant isopod, nautilus, snipefish and roughies. I do realize that Singapore's location means that deep oceans are located further away than for some Japanese aquaria, but it would still have been nice with more "local" species from the deep parts of the Andaman or South Chinese Sea. Deep sea species from these regions are almost entirely absent from aquaria and this would have been my main chance of seeing a species I hadn't seen on display elsewhere. However, I also realize that only hardcore aquarium fans really would appreciate that
- There are several other sections, but above are some of the main. There is also a quite good East African lakes section, primarily focusing on cichlids. It is the only freshwater part of the aquarium. Arguably it would have been more fitting in River Safari, which has a world class collection of large freshwater fish, but far less when it comes to medium/small sized fish.
SEA is nice aquarium and well worth a visit for hardcore and "normal" aquarium visitors alike. Overall it is in my aquarium top-10, but still some way from the very top. With a few moves and tweaks (notably small sharks to Open Ocean, leaving "Shark Seas" for top predator sharks; corallivores and similar to "Shipwreck", leaving "Coral Garden" as a living coral tank), it certainly also has the potential to climb the list.
In the above I have left out the dolphin pools. They are located outside the actual aquarium building and in general I have ambivalent feelings about dolphins in captivity. However, despite all the talks by some animal rights groups, SEA's dolphins pools seemed good.
The Marine Life Park is very impressive and well worth a visit. Seeing an overview of the aquarium and reading brief descriptions of the sections admittedly resulted in me expecting a contender for "best aquarium in the world", a position IMO held by Okinawa for quite some years. It doesn't quite make it there, but it certainly is among the top aquaria in the world. On paper, it does look quite like a larger version of Okinawa: Larger ocean tank (~18 mio l), larger big shark tank (~3 mio l), larger general predators tank (~4 mio l), both with big coral tank, and both with deep water sections. However, for reasons described below, it mostly isn't:
- Large ocean tank: Somewhat smaller than Georgia's, but almost twice as large as the third largest aquarium in the world (there's a handful of aquaria at 8.5-10 mio l). However, due to the contruction, the ocean tank appears more like a big version of the 8.5-10 mio l. tanks than a somewhat smaller version of Georgia. This is, in part, because the large viewing window is placed on the longest side of the roughly rectangular tank, i.e. the rear wall, about 35 m away, is easily visible. (in Georgia, the large viewing window is on the smallest side of the roughly rectangular tank, i.e. the rear wall being much further away.) The viewing window is by far the largest in the world and the vista through it is impressive. No species really compares to the whale shark, but since that species appears to be entirely unlikely in SEA Aquarium, the manta is a decent substitute. There are four at present, but I believe they plan on getting more. There are also many more commonly displayed species of rays, groupers, etc.
- Shark Tank ("Shark Seas" aquarium): Crowded and currently contains mostly fairly small sharks. Unless something slipped my mind, I believe it also is the tank I've seen with the largest number of shark species. I do hope they'll consider moving the smallest species to other tanks where they shouldn't cause any major problems, leaving this tank as a top predator tank only (similar to Okinawa's shark tank).
- General predators tank ("Shipwreck" aquarium): Another very impressive tank and the shipwreck is done quite well. Mostly contains various medium-sized predators.
- Big coral tank ("Coral Garden" aquarium): A big cylindrical tank that contains numerous coral reef fish. With its name, I had expected this to be a big tank filled with living coral and fish, but SEA's living coral are generally located in other much smaller aquaria. As a consequence, they don't really have the "wow" feeling of Okinawa's or Burgers' big living coral tanks, and are also unlikely to get major coral spawing.
- "Ocean Journey": This part of the SEA contains a variety of aquaria such as jellyfish, but also the deep sea section. There is only really one deep sea aquarium which contains "standard" Japanese deep sea species such as Japanese spider crab, giant isopod, nautilus, snipefish and roughies. I do realize that Singapore's location means that deep oceans are located further away than for some Japanese aquaria, but it would still have been nice with more "local" species from the deep parts of the Andaman or South Chinese Sea. Deep sea species from these regions are almost entirely absent from aquaria and this would have been my main chance of seeing a species I hadn't seen on display elsewhere. However, I also realize that only hardcore aquarium fans really would appreciate that
- There are several other sections, but above are some of the main. There is also a quite good East African lakes section, primarily focusing on cichlids. It is the only freshwater part of the aquarium. Arguably it would have been more fitting in River Safari, which has a world class collection of large freshwater fish, but far less when it comes to medium/small sized fish.
SEA is nice aquarium and well worth a visit for hardcore and "normal" aquarium visitors alike. Overall it is in my aquarium top-10, but still some way from the very top. With a few moves and tweaks (notably small sharks to Open Ocean, leaving "Shark Seas" for top predator sharks; corallivores and similar to "Shipwreck", leaving "Coral Garden" as a living coral tank), it certainly also has the potential to climb the list.
In the above I have left out the dolphin pools. They are located outside the actual aquarium building and in general I have ambivalent feelings about dolphins in captivity. However, despite all the talks by some animal rights groups, SEA's dolphins pools seemed good.
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