I visited the Austin Aquarium May 8th 2024. The aquarium opens at 10AM and I was there right when they opened, my flight from Tampa having arrive around 8:30. This is the first "strip mall" aquarium that I have been to. I have been to SeaLife Orlando, but that is not really the same as these small family oriented low budget places. Whereas SeaLife is AZA accredited, the Austin Aquarium is not and does not aim to be......at all.
Austin is strange in that it is now a large city that lacks a regular zoo or aquarium. The Austin Aquarium is owned/founded by the same notorious group that brings you such shining stars as the SeaQuest aquariums and the San Antonio Aquarium - not the best group to put it kindly. Still, I had an hour to kill before my meeting and I had never been to this place, even when I lived in Austin.
As of writing the adult ticket price is $24.95 and kids are $19.95.
This place is not large, I took a leisurely hour to see it, but I saw one family blaze through in about 10 minutes. Their main motivation is to charge you for anything. You can feed pretty much every animal there, and they charge you "tokens" that you buy when you go in. They also have "foot cleaning" from fish, the "hurricane machine", and "experiences" with essentially everything else.
Most of the small tanks were unmemorable and pretty bare, and ALL of them had a very annoying blue light on them, except for one seahorse tank. There are two large touch tanks with rays and sharks as well as other tanks that would fall into the medium size to me. Most of the aquarium tanks were actually decent and if this place was just/mostly aquarium and herp in origin then it would be rather OK.....but then there are the mammals and birds. (more on that later). The herp tanks were largely nice (with the exception of the tortoise enclosures), although lacking adequate signage.
On the subject of signs. Most of the signs were digital and looked nice, but they were really just all over the place. Some were static and signed animals not in that tank, most were rotating and just rotated for EVERYTHING in that area. The herps in particular just rotated for all the herps, so you could be looking at Solomon island skinks and see a sign for poison dart frogs. They were entirely unhelpful.
First area:
The first area you enter holds a medium size cichlid tank, two moon jelly wall tanks as well as tanks for a few other small fish and anenome. There is also a rather strange starfish touch tank and a SUPER strange boat split in half for green iguana and tortoise. I have no idea what keeps the iguana from just walking out or from swatting people with its tail. This area also holds a fairly large capybara enclosure and pacific octopus cave.
Cichlid tank:
Capybara:
Strange touch tank:
Super strange boat:
Octopus cave:
View leaving the gallery:
Gallery #2:
The second gallery holds the largest touch tank that holds rays and sharks: Southern rays, cownose rays, one bamboo shark, two guitarfish, and some small saltwater fish. As it goes it is a pretty solid tank for these animals. This area also holds various wall tanks for fish....all lit with an INCREADIBLY annoying blue light. These tanks did not used to be lit that way, pictures from 2015 show normal lighting. It makes seeing the fish nearly impossible. By and large the big tank is nice but all the wall tanks were forgettable.
Largest touch pool with sharks and rays:
Wall tanks:
Gallery #3:
This are holds various tanks for reef fish ( a decent tank), freshwater fish, "hand cleaning" doctor fish, axolotl, and a two toed sloth enclosure. Everything here was OK, there was even a underwater crawl space in one of the salt tanks.
Reef fish:
Underwater crawl space:
sloth:
Gallery #4
OK, here is where things get a bit worse. This space is a large open area that contains the party area as well as enclosures for African penguins, red-ruffed lemur, bennet's wallaby, black and white lemur, tortoises, parakeets, and a large koi and turtle pond.
The penguins enclosure seemed to hold 3 animals. Overall I have seen worse, but the pool is far from adequately sized, barely large enough for a penguin to get fully under the water. However, at least they had different types of substrate options and the actual size was not bad for three birds.
All of the lemur cages were smallish and contained three animals each. There were some climbing areas, but not a lot.
The wallaby enclosure was super strange. There were a few wallabies in the back but they are housed with chickens, cockatiels, golden pheasant, and red fronted amazons. Just strange.
The koi pond was pretty big, but it was absolutely PACKED with fish, a few ducks, and at least one turtle. There was land space in the back too, but none of the land animals were using it for some reason. Off to the side of this pond is a small enclosure for un-signed tortoise (maybe Hermans or Greek?) as well as tegu.
Across from the pond was the parakeet aviary...it was just a large screen box with loads of parakeets. Beside this was a very dark enclosure for prehensile tailed porcupine and a the previously mentioned black and white lemurs. This is also where an very undersized enclosure for a sulcata tortoise was.
Lastly there was an alright eel tank.
Penguins:
Red-ruffed lemur:
Wallaby menagerie:
Koi:
Sulcata:
Eel:
part 2 upcoming.
Austin is strange in that it is now a large city that lacks a regular zoo or aquarium. The Austin Aquarium is owned/founded by the same notorious group that brings you such shining stars as the SeaQuest aquariums and the San Antonio Aquarium - not the best group to put it kindly. Still, I had an hour to kill before my meeting and I had never been to this place, even when I lived in Austin.
As of writing the adult ticket price is $24.95 and kids are $19.95.
This place is not large, I took a leisurely hour to see it, but I saw one family blaze through in about 10 minutes. Their main motivation is to charge you for anything. You can feed pretty much every animal there, and they charge you "tokens" that you buy when you go in. They also have "foot cleaning" from fish, the "hurricane machine", and "experiences" with essentially everything else.
Most of the small tanks were unmemorable and pretty bare, and ALL of them had a very annoying blue light on them, except for one seahorse tank. There are two large touch tanks with rays and sharks as well as other tanks that would fall into the medium size to me. Most of the aquarium tanks were actually decent and if this place was just/mostly aquarium and herp in origin then it would be rather OK.....but then there are the mammals and birds. (more on that later). The herp tanks were largely nice (with the exception of the tortoise enclosures), although lacking adequate signage.
On the subject of signs. Most of the signs were digital and looked nice, but they were really just all over the place. Some were static and signed animals not in that tank, most were rotating and just rotated for EVERYTHING in that area. The herps in particular just rotated for all the herps, so you could be looking at Solomon island skinks and see a sign for poison dart frogs. They were entirely unhelpful.
First area:
The first area you enter holds a medium size cichlid tank, two moon jelly wall tanks as well as tanks for a few other small fish and anenome. There is also a rather strange starfish touch tank and a SUPER strange boat split in half for green iguana and tortoise. I have no idea what keeps the iguana from just walking out or from swatting people with its tail. This area also holds a fairly large capybara enclosure and pacific octopus cave.
Cichlid tank:
Capybara:
Strange touch tank:
Super strange boat:
Octopus cave:
View leaving the gallery:
Gallery #2:
The second gallery holds the largest touch tank that holds rays and sharks: Southern rays, cownose rays, one bamboo shark, two guitarfish, and some small saltwater fish. As it goes it is a pretty solid tank for these animals. This area also holds various wall tanks for fish....all lit with an INCREADIBLY annoying blue light. These tanks did not used to be lit that way, pictures from 2015 show normal lighting. It makes seeing the fish nearly impossible. By and large the big tank is nice but all the wall tanks were forgettable.
Largest touch pool with sharks and rays:
Wall tanks:
Gallery #3:
This are holds various tanks for reef fish ( a decent tank), freshwater fish, "hand cleaning" doctor fish, axolotl, and a two toed sloth enclosure. Everything here was OK, there was even a underwater crawl space in one of the salt tanks.
Reef fish:
Underwater crawl space:
sloth:
Gallery #4
OK, here is where things get a bit worse. This space is a large open area that contains the party area as well as enclosures for African penguins, red-ruffed lemur, bennet's wallaby, black and white lemur, tortoises, parakeets, and a large koi and turtle pond.
The penguins enclosure seemed to hold 3 animals. Overall I have seen worse, but the pool is far from adequately sized, barely large enough for a penguin to get fully under the water. However, at least they had different types of substrate options and the actual size was not bad for three birds.
All of the lemur cages were smallish and contained three animals each. There were some climbing areas, but not a lot.
The wallaby enclosure was super strange. There were a few wallabies in the back but they are housed with chickens, cockatiels, golden pheasant, and red fronted amazons. Just strange.
The koi pond was pretty big, but it was absolutely PACKED with fish, a few ducks, and at least one turtle. There was land space in the back too, but none of the land animals were using it for some reason. Off to the side of this pond is a small enclosure for un-signed tortoise (maybe Hermans or Greek?) as well as tegu.
Across from the pond was the parakeet aviary...it was just a large screen box with loads of parakeets. Beside this was a very dark enclosure for prehensile tailed porcupine and a the previously mentioned black and white lemurs. This is also where an very undersized enclosure for a sulcata tortoise was.
Lastly there was an alright eel tank.
Penguins:
Red-ruffed lemur:
Wallaby menagerie:
Koi:
Sulcata:
Eel:
part 2 upcoming.
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