Hello everyone! Today I just visited Jakarta Aquarium, and I decided to make a little report.
I went there at 10 AM by car, and it wasn't as packed as usual. There were visitors though, but most of them are kindergarteners and babies. When I entered the aquarium, I was welcomed by three exhibits: one housing some longhorn cowfish, blue-green chromis and red-cheeked anthias, one housing assorted clownfish, blue tangs and bird wrasses and one housing some volitan lionfish and a lone crocodilefish.
Then, I went to the Islands of Indonesia section. The left side housed otters as usual, and I was treated with an otter show, where they do tricks such as picking up plastic bottles and raising a flag. And on the right side is an exhibit housing a lone female serval named Senna, along with assorted cheapo freshwater fishes such as tilapias, oscars, mayan cichlids, common carps, hard-lipped barbs, torpedo barbs and a pair of duckbill catfish in the underwater area. I saw Senna eating on a large tilapia corpse, and it was freshly killed. The zookeeper said that sometimes Senna catches any fishes that swims into the shallower part, although she never swims. The fishes are added as a decor and as an enrichment.
Then, my journey continued to the Rainforest of Indonesia section. There's a zookeeper offering photos with a reticulated python, which was pretty tame and friendly, a glass case exhibit housing 2.3 cotton-top tamarins, a bird house with a spotted wood owl inside (and an empty one that supposed to house a barn owl), a coconut crab exhibit (where the phyton used to be), two terraria (one with axolotls and one with poison dart frogs) and a small corner with two paludaria and two terraria. The first paludarium contains a pair of Northern snake-necked turtles, along with some clown barbs and three spot gouramis, and the second paludarium is empty (what the heck). I asked the zookeeper that it used to house the bichirs and black ghost knifefish, but they're going to be replaced with Mormyrus longirostris soon. The two terraria houses a pair of horned frogs and a red-knee tarantula. Not far from the corner is a circular terrarium housing a pair of juvenile Weber's sailfin lizard. The chameleons has been phased out and moved to Taman Safari. There's also a circular exhibit that used to house the coconut crabs, now housing a lone blue-and-yellow macaw named Jacob. Sometimes Jacob shocks me with his loud screeches and caws. Unfortunately, the mudskippers and ghost crabs were also phased out. The zookeeper said that Jacob will get a new exhibit soon, and his former exhibit will be used for a reptile (hopefully a caiman because Jakarta Aquarium needs a crocodilian).
On to the Nursery of the Sea area, I went to the two log exhibits first. One still housing the blue-tongued skinks and Forsten's tortoises and one apparently housing a large red tegu. These two can be touched, but they cannot be taken out of their exhibit. The archerfish are still there, but the bamboo sharks, halfbeaks and reef lobsters are gone. Instead, they're replaced by sea cucumbers and small mangrove horseshoe crabs. I was lucky that it was feeding time, so I recorded them spraying on some nightcrawlers. Onwards to the mammal displays, I went to the binturong exhibit first. Ajun is currently being quarantined, but her mate Jovin and her child Jimmy are there. Jimmy was born last year, and it just celebrated its 1st birthday few weeks ago. I had the chance to feed and headpat Jimmy, and for someone who hasn't visited a zoo or an aquarium for a year it felt like a little shocking experience. I also got to feed the meerkats on the adjacent exhibit too. There are also dusky pademelons, but they cannot be fed unfortunately. After that, I continued to the ray exhibit. All of the ray species from the previous years are there, including the zebra shark and the remoras, but the bowmouth guitarfish and spotted sicklefish are off-display. On the shallow part, there are some dwarf whiprays and blue-spotted ribbontail rays. There's also a collection of small reptiles and insects in terraria, which included Sumatran stick insect, Eurycnema versirubra, Gray's leaf insect, orchid mantis, emerald tree skink and sunbeam snake. The Caucasus beetle and Alcides stag beetle are off-display, and the terrarium that used to house them has been dismantled.
After finishing the safari part of the aquarium, I continued to the aquarium part. The first area is the Swirls and Jewels area. The swirl tank is still in good shape, and still houses the usual fishes (Indo-Pacific tarpons and Indian threadfish). The circular tanks that used to house rare reef creatures now houses live corals and small reef fishes and creatures such as Thor amboinensis, porcelain crabs, Helfrichi's firefish, Turbo marmoratus, Banggai cardinalfish, messmate pipefish, sand-sifting starfish and Diadema setosum. The two tube tanks houses assorted damselfish, Combtooth blenny, Parupeneus barberinus, anemone hermit crab, speckled sandperch, spotted hawkfish, blue and white ribbon eels. The two nearby vertical tanks houses small moray eels (snowflake, zebra and barred moray) and sygnathids (tigertail seahorse and alligator pipefish).
The outer reefs exhibit also houses great barracudas, giant and laced morays now, in addition of large reef fishes from surgeonfish, wrasses, angelfish, butterflyfish, triggerfish and some other fishes such as crowned squirrelfish and longfin bannerfish. The circular tank houses assorted filefish, Diana's hogfish, fairy wrasses and striped eel catfish now, and the garden eels and razorfish that previously occupied the exhibit moved to the former cardinalfish exhibit. The wall tank has been converted from a small reef fish exhibit into an exhibit housing three species of spiny lobsters (pronghorn, scalloped and longlegged). The nearby exhibit still houses the sea dragons, but only the weedy sea dragon was seen, while the adjacent exhibit still houses the giant Pacific octopus like back in 2019.
On to the touch pool area, the touch pool is considerably barren compared to back in the previous years. Now only houses large brown-banded bamboo sharks, a lone blue-spotted ribbontail rays and two species of starfish (chocolate chip and cushion). The abyss exhibit also houses horsehair crabs now in addition of the giant isopods, since both are crustaceans. The shark egg exhibit also houses the cardinalfish from the exhibit that now houses the ribbon eels. There's also an exhibit housing various Pacific fishes such as old wife, ornate and Shaw's cowfish, cherry anthias and a lone popeye catalufa.
The freshwater area hasn't changed much compared to my last visit back in 2019, only the small freshwater fishes exhibit is now occupied by payaras and goliath tigerfish. The piranhas are replaced by smaller piranhas, and a pair of Amur sturgeons and azul peacock bass are added in the tinfoil barb tank, and it's still overstocked as usual. I asked the zookeeper to send all of the tinfoil barbs to Taman Safari, and he will try to do it so the exhibit wont be overstocked again. One of the sturgeons appears to be healthy and the other one is in bad shape. Meanwhile, the waterfall basin tank gets new additions such as spotted gars, redtail catfish, giant mottled eel, alligator gars, pacus (black and albino), pintado catfish, tiger shovelnose catfish and a yellow-tailed Asian arowana. The biotope exhibit has been converted from a Javan biotope to an Amazonian biotope housing three discus and two Altum angelfish. I think the sailfin lizards would look nice here.
Now, to the jellyfish area. The jellyfish exhibits appears to be a little empty today. The moon jelly exhibit is filled with smaller specimen, the flower hat jelly is replaced by upside-down jellies and the sea nettle exhibit has only three individuals. The nautilus exhibit is now home to a school of splitfin flashlightfish and popeye catalufas, and the former Pacific fish exhibit now houses snipefishes from the isopod exhibit and some juvenile pineconefish. The Southern Sea exhibit still remains the same, sans the groupers (giant, Malabar, orange-spotted and blue and yellow). The green sea turtle from the Nursery of the Sea area moves here, and I hope the hawksbill turles also move here in the future. The sharks and rays are still there, minus the bowmouth guitarfish.
So far, Jakarta Aquarium has both improved and sucked at the same time. They added new animals and improved their mammalian and reptilian collection, but they also put some animals off-display without notice.
