Monterey Bay Aquarium New Project

[Northwest_FIsh_Keeping]

(This was all said in a public discord server, however, it was technically mentioned in a pay-to-access part of the server so I'm not sure if I can share pictures or screenshots)
According to someone on the Monterey Bay Aquarium staff who works in the Husbandry Projects team, a new exhibit is currently in the works. They were vague of course since I imagine they can't reveal too much; however, what is known so far is:

• A 30ft long Reef Tank is what is being designed right now
• All of the back will be made of white acrylic and lit with LED lights that are a mix of very light blue and white to give it a "frosty/icy feel" (that's how I'd described it, not how they described it)
• It looks like they're testing wave/flow patterns on tanks of similar length, which isn't that notable but they might be trying to mimic the wave pattern of a certain region

This kind of kills my idea of them making an Arctic exhibit since there aren't that many Arctic coral species to fill a 30ft long tank. They didn't mention if it would be a stand alone addition to an existing gallery, or an entirely new gallery. Personally, I have no idea where a 30ft long tank could go in the current layout of the Aquarium, and the white LED background doesn't fit the aesthetic of the other galleries. The "Splash Zone" gallery where all the current tropical reef tanks are all use blue backgrounds as an example. I'm really hoping this is some kind of hint towards an upcoming special exhibition, since this one is taking much longer than the normal downtime between special exhibitions. I'm really curious as to what the theming could be, though. White backgrounds aren't really used on Reef tanks, let alone a public aquarium display. This makes me even more excited to see what they're planning; the wait will surely be worth it. It seems like they're still in the very early stages of planning everything so I doubt we'll get an official announcement from the Aquarium even by the end of the year. So we'll just have to keep speculating for now.

 

[Iguana_Cabana]

Should have been a black background honestly. Everything stands out better that way. Otherwise interesting, especially the flow patterns and length. BTW, if they are trying to go for an "icy" feel, then could that mean colder water reef species like masked or peppermint angels go in? IDK for sure due to those fishes' pricetag.

 

[Northwest_FIsh_Keeping]

Should have been a black background honestly. Everything stands out better that way. Otherwise interesting, especially the flow patterns and length. BTW, if they are trying to go for an "icy" feel, then could that mean colder water reef species like masked or peppermint angels go in? IDK for sure due to those fishes' pricetag.

I would love if they got some of those, sadly no one has collected any Peppermint Angels since Steinhart Aquarium last collected them in 2018/2019.
Just as a follow up, it was confirmed that this exhibit I was talking about will be the brand new 6,000-ish Gallon Reef Tank that will be apart of the "Splash Zone" gallery renovation set to open next year. Along with a whole slate of other changes, the news thread has more information i posted but the background color is meant to simulate the color of the water you see in shallow coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific Region apparently, like one of those coral reef stock images you'd find on google