Touch pools, May 2013.

A row of ridiculous pools, many of them separated by movable barriers, house an amazing array of sea creatures housed inadequately. Most of the animals are very unsuitable for touch pools.
This is touted as \'Malaysia\'s biggest touch pool\', and the aquarium as \'Malaysia\'s most touchable aquarium\'.
For unaware visitors this must be quite an exciting experience to start off the aquarium visit, but I\'m sure some must question the concept of touching jellyfish, seahorses and remoras.
Photo taken on the 6th/8th May 2013.

this might sound a bit odd from someone who is an aquarist, but I hate touch tanks! It's kind of a tricky one because kids (and adults) love being able to touch the marine life and seeing what it feels like, and it helps them learn, but the suffering of the animals for me is intolerable. Ideally the individual animals would get rotated regularly so they aren't in the touch tank all the time but that rarely happens. Instead the animals are just there until they die and then they're replaced. Even the toughest crabs and shellfish can't deal with being manhandled and taken out of the water repeatedly for weeks on end.

Having species like seahorses is just stupid!

Even as a visitor I find touch tanks have no appeal to me. I sometimes find them clever, (like Chessington's cleaner shrimp fingernail cleaning station) and I like the fact that they can enthuse younger visitors, but this setup is just plain wrong.