This is the best photo that I could get of the constantly moving ocean sunfish.
An excerpt from my 2011 review:
The Open Sea – a million gallon tank with a 90-foot window that has hammerhead sharks, green sea turtles, Bluefin tuna, bonitos, an enormously impressive 5,000 pound ocean sunfish, a variety of smaller fish, and the occasional great white shark (no shark at the moment). This exhibit used to be called the Outer Bay, and it recently underwent a one-year, $20 million renovation and only just reopened. In 2006 I was blown away by the immense size of the tank, even though it is devoid of any plant life or rocks whatsoever. But that's the open ocean! Now after seeing the 6 million gallon tank full of 4 whale sharks, thousands of fish of all sizes, plants and rocks everywhere at the Georgia Aquarium...this million gallon tank at Monterey isn't nearly as impressive. If you don't go to Georgia then Monterey's huge tank is amazing, but Georgia's whale shark tank that is over 6 million gallons is the best single tank exhibit in all of North America. Who can compete with that? The Open Sea million-gallon tank doesn’t really look any different than it did before the renovation, but it is still eerie how the back of the huge tank cannot be seen and thus the sea animals appear to swim out of nowhere. Monterey Bay has recently added two juvenile green sea turtles to a small side tank and a decent bird exhibit with tufted puffins, horned puffins and common murres that is a major hit with visitors.
Is it fair to compare this exhibit to the whale shark tank at the Georgia Aquarium? They seem to be doing different things in that this tank is portraying the vast open ocean and the predators that live there, while the Georgia tank is primarily housing for the whale sharks from what I have read (not having yet seen the tank). What makes the Georgia tank "the best"? Anything other than size? There has been considerable criticism that they do not adequately house their whale sharks, but this may be outdated criticism.
To me one of the most impressive aspects of the Monterey tank is the tuna and the accompanying interpretive gallery for the tuna, sea turtles, and sharks. If it is possible to fall in love with tuna as wild animals rather than as sandwich filling then this tank is exhibit A for how it can be done.
@DAVID: I guess that my comparison of Monterey Bay's largest exhibit with Georgia's largest habitat is based primarily on size and splendour. ZooChatter Tim Brown, in the IZES Zoo Grapevine magazine stated that the whale shark tank in Atlanta is "without a doubt, the greatest single zoological exhibit I've ever seen" and he's been to something like 520 zoos/aquariums so that is saying something! The 4 whales sharks are unbelievable to view swimming overhead, and that 6 million gallon tank is also packed with thousands of other sea critters. As much as I enjoy Monterey Bay Aquarium the Open Sea tank in California is a pale comparison to the Ocean Voyager tank in Georgia.
The major diffrence between both tanks is-the animals at the Montery Bay Aquarium do have much more space to swim, because there are less and smaller animals in the exhibit as in Atlanta. By the way, "Ocean Voyager" does not have really 6 Million Gallons, a lot of this Water is circeling in the filter sytem, so you can't count in in.
Another diffrence is, at Monterey, they try to breed the species which they keep, so not Ggeorgia Aquarium, they have no interest in breeding whale sharks, they use them only for show reasons.
Monterey is a great Place, a serious,scientific aquarium, while GA is more an amusment place which a high fun factor.
