Aquarium basic maintenence issues.

[Devi]

I've noticed a big problem in the UK at least of a lack of basic maintenence in aquariums. I have a reef tank myself, a fairly small one, and I wouldn't call myself an expert in any way, however I have seen various reef tanks that have bad cases of fairly treatable issues.
There's a photo of the London Sea life centre that shows a bad case of Cyanobacteria or 'Red Slime', which suggest high levels of phosphates and nitrates in the water, which is dangerous for fish and potentially deadly for inverterbrates. It can be fixed by siphoning and increasing water changes.
There's also a number of tanks in the National Sea life centre affected by Majono and Aptasia Anemones which sting fish and kill corals. This is again fixed by a simple scrape of the rocks.
Finally, the National sea life centre got hold of some lovely sun corals that looked really healthy, but these slowly starved to death, presumably because these delicate creatures need target feeding and nobody bothered. Almost all are now reduced to skeletons.
What is going on at these places that these things don't get done? Is this commonplace everywhere, or are these isolated cases?

 

[procyonlotor]

The National Sea Life Centres, including the one in London, are run by Merlin entertainments, who, for the record, care more about footfall than the animals themselves. It's a bitter subject.

It doesn't go on that much, but it's often due to having a large team of relatively poorly trained individuals. Don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic people that work there, but they cannot support an entire team.

We've had problems where I work, but often that's related to things that we've obtained via customs and these tanks, when managed properly, recover quickly.

Have you written to them or told a member of staff your concerns?

 

[Devi]

I haven't tbh, I assumed they knew but weren't bothered, I mean, surely if your corals were shrivelling to skeletons you'd at least google a care sheet?
If animals were starving there'd be a lot of questions being asked, and corals are animals, not highly developed ones that learn tricks maybe, but still, you need to feed them.
Would it be best to write?

 

[procyonlotor]

I think you should definitely highlight the issue.

We've had some issues with one of our tanks of late, and it's been quite a painful experience of reassessing the water levels, ensuring that there's no substantial overgrowth of algae and removing the dead tissue.

They may very well be aware since corals are notoriously difficult to care for, but from what you've said some of these issues have either been left for too long or are down to simple mismanagement and so it would be good to voice your concerns.