Nandito's Jakarta Aquarium visit and review

[Salt Merchant]

Its been like four or three years when I visited this place (Back when it was still great). I actually planned to go to JAQ (Jakarta AQuarium) earlier, back in Tuesday on November 20, when I did arrived at the aquarium, only to be told that there will be a exclusive event (They didn't specified what event). I can still went inside but only until 6 PM, it was almost 5 PM, so I guess its not worth the time and rush. Yesterday, I was deciding on whether to go to JAQ or Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII). I almost went for TMII because of recommendation from my family (The revitalization and several new upgrades that go with it), but I ended up decided on visiting JAQ, since its raining season in Indonesia and the revitalization barely affected the animal sections of TMII, so I guess its won't worth it.

Like Lembang Park and Zoo, my reasoning to visit this aquarium because I just need to because of how much I often ranted on this place (97% on the Safari section). I had to go there and see it with my own eyes, not from YouTube videos and Instagram posts from these influencers and the zoo/ aquarium themselves, which had (Ironically) influenced my view on these places. I will and always will give a huge L to the Safari section until it was refurbished into something more appropriate, but JAQ isn't entirely centered around that. They still have the various saltwater and freshwater throughout the aquarium, which I'm eager to look at during my visit today.

 

[Salt Merchant]

December 25, 2022

The distance between my house and Neo Soho, the mall in which JAQ is located within, is quite close, we're both located in West Jakarta and probably only took a hour minus the traffic, and there were traffic today. I arrived at 11 AM in Neo Soho and, after additional half a hour trying to find a empty parking lot, went straight to JAQ. Within the mall complex, the aquarium is located on the bottom two floors. The first section (Or as they called it the "Safari" section) is located on the second to bottom floor, while the second section (The main section) is located on the very bottom floor, along the Pingoo Restaurant (A restaurant that is a part of JAQ, having Humboldt penguins in it). As I arrived, it was very crowded and this one dude, one of the staff, seems to be really frustrated. If I remember, he had this megaphone, telling people to just go there, not do that, etc. Throughout my visit, it was very, very crowded. The ticket cost IDR 145.000 on the weekend and public holidays.

The first zone is called "Diving Deep", there are three decently-sized reef tanks with assorted coral reef fish. Some of the tanks are named, the first called "Soft coral tank", the second called "anemone tank", while the third is unnamed. Then, I arrived at the Safari zone, the "Safari" in Jakarta Aquarium and Safari". If you had saw some of my posts, you know how much I dislike this section. This section had put me in bad places before mentally, so the good thing that I could do is just to skip them, except from a few good one. One of these good one, which is the best one, is the Asian small-clawed otter exhibit. The otters was quite active today, I believe I saw five of them, although they were not in the water. One of the otters scratched its butt on the side of the wooden platform. Overall a fun sight coupled with the wonderful exhibit. I passed through this pathway, on the left and right there were artificial trees and this computer-generated digital pond with digital kois (I don't know the correct term). There was a herpetarium corner. On the left and right of the entry, there was these two round exhibit, one aquatic and one not. The one filled with water houses axolotls, a pair of different color-morph (A melanistic and leucistic morph). The one that is not houses a variety of dart frogs (Golfodulcean, blue, and dyeing dart frogs). Inside the corner, there was two beautifully-planted paludarium. On the right, it have several adult blind cave fish and an Peters's elephant-nose fish, weird mix. On the left, it have a pair of Northern snake-necked turtles, as well as several three spot gouramis and several climbing perch, great for the fishes but quite unfit for the turtles. There was also two small terrariums, one for an Mexican redknee tarantula and one for a pair of Asian forest scorpions. Quite far from the corner, there was a cylindrical planted exhibit with an chameleon forest dragon. Adjacent to that there is two glassed floors, a top view of the main aquarium. The glasses were thick, several peoples were on top of it. I can see some yellowfin surgeonfish, golden trevally, cowtail stingray, common shovelnose ray, tawny nurse shark, whitetip reef sharks, and blacktip reef sharks.

From that, there was a open-topped tank primarily houses several banded archerfish, as well as Mangrove horseshoe crabs and sea cucumbers. There was this small circular targets, used during the feeding show when they demonstrate their shooting ability. There was another, larger open-topped tank with assorted coastal fish, like live sharksuckers, cobias, common shovelnose rays, and rays (Flapnose ray, ocellated ray, bluespotted ribbontail ray, cowtail stingray, Jenkin's whipray, and mangrove whipray), as well as several other fishes. It was very long and wide, these fishes have a space to swim around. Just next to that, there was a shallow open-topped tank, housing several bluespotted ribbontail rays. Several other fishes in the tank are bamboo sharks (Brownbanded and whitespotted bamboo sharks), mangrove horseshoe crabs, and, for some reason, an milkfish and an bristle-tail filefish. Before going downstair into the main section, there was this herpetarium and insectarium with tall and short terrariums, all of them decorated though not that great and lush. There were Sumatran stick insect, leopard geckos, emerald tree skink, Australian green tree frogs, and an orchid mantis. The stick insect exhibit had a black plastic bag for the plant for some reason, aside from just planting it (The terrarium is tall enough).

 

[Salt Merchant]

Continued

Going downstair, it was even more crowded than back in the Safari section, there was even a kid throwing a temper tantrum over there. There was also dozens of people just waiting in line for something that I will get into in a minute, just absolute pure pandemonium. Due to this reason, I can't properly talk in much detail on this section, since I can't barely focused on enjoying and viewing the tanks. But I luckly managed to photographed almost all of the tanks so I will go with that along with the help of my vivid memory.

The first zone in after going downstair was called "Swirls and Jewels". I was greeted by a tall cylindrical tank housing a school of Indo-Pacific tarpons. Adjacent to that, there was a large coral reef tank with assorted coral reef fishes, like damselfish, fusiliers, squirrelfish, butterflyfish, tangs, queenfish, and batfish, as well as an barred soapfish and an laced moray. Quite far from that, there was three circular tanks. The first is barren and had several cardinalfishes, including the Banggai cardinalfish, an latticed butterflyfish, and sea urchins. The second with corals had assorted small reef fishes, like the threespot dascyllus and maroon clownfish among others. The third, also had corals and additionaly anemone, had small reef fishes and shrimps, like squat shrimps, ocellaris clownfish, and yellowbanded pipefish among others. Those two reef tanks are just wonderful and nice. On the other side of those tanks, there was two small cylindrical tanks. One had three or four striped eel catfish, the second had two large dusky batfish, as well as an ribbon eel, an spotted hawkfish, and three or four white ribbon eels. The batfish were too large for the tank, just constantly swimming around in their cylindrical captivity. Same goes for the eel catfish, though they were not constantly swimming around. There are also a large donut-shaped tank with assorted reef fishes, where people can get in the middle of tank to took a picture with this somewhat underwater theme. There was a square-shaped tank with a shipwreck decoration, it had sand sifting sifting starfish, tiger tail seahorses, and alligator pipefish. The pipefish was the largest that I've ever seen, no idea they can get that big. There was a second square-shaped tank with moray eels, mostly snowflake and zebra morays, but there was also an barred moray. Adjacent to that, there is a barren, sandy aquarium predominantly houses garden eels (Spotted and splendid garden eels), but also several razorfish and banded pipefish. There was a wall tank, with anemones and several corals, housing lionfishes (common and clearfin lionfish), an estuarine stonefish, and a pair of milk-spotted pufferfish. The last tank was my favorite. It was decorated with rocks at the back, with woods and marine plants, housing a pair of common or weedy sea dragon, impressive how they were able to took care of them for so long, since the leafy sea dragon that they used to had seems to has been phased out (Most probably died out).

There were dozens of peoples just waiting in line for something, turned out it was for the penguin parade in the Pingoo Restaurant, where the penguins were just marching and screamed at by some children. Its not my cup of tea so I skipped it. The next zone is called "Touch and Find", the "Touch" is definately for the touch pool that is in the zone, but there's nothing else in that zone that indicated the "Find" part. There was another, larger wall tank housing silver-colored schooling fish, the Indian threadfish and the torpedo scad. Next to that, another of my favorite exhibit, have giant isopods. There was also this some kind of educational square-shaped tank with bamboo shark eggs and also an bristle-tail filefish in there in the corner, I would guess that this is supposed to be the "Find" part of the zone. A second similarly-sized tank just right next to it have three Panulirus species (Panulirus homarus). The touch pool itself was suprisingly empty with only a few peoples, probably because of the penguin parade. It has bluespotted ribbontail rays and whitespotted bamboo sharks, as well as chocolate chip sea stars. The pond was deep for a touch pool, they had two boxes where peoples can actually touch the sea stars. There was also a "quarantine pool", which I believe where the fishes went after being in a touch pool and after a while, put back into the touch pool. Great addition. Before going to the next zone, there was this one last tank of the Touch and Find zone. It was obscure, I don't think it caught other peoples attention aside from me. It houses several cardinalfishes, pajama cardinalfish and spotted-gill cardinalfish, and an starfish that I couldn't quite tell what species of.

 

[Salt Merchant]

Continued

After passing through this beautifully decorated tunnel that also apparently had a promotion for the new James Cameron's Avatar sequel for some reason, I enter the "River of Indonesia" section, while only housing only like 10 native Indonesian species as opposed to more than double the collection of foreign species. Aside from the main tanks, there was this well-planted, but seems narrow paludarium with assorted small freshwater fish, including for some reason several hybrid blue polar parrot cichlids (Convict cichlid x Parrot cichlid). Behind the paludarium, there was this carnival game corner. The main tank in the zone is this large open-topped aquarium, with a impressive waterfall. Peoples were sitting around the tank, covering the aquarium view, making it hard to be certain on what species are in there. The one that I could find are bigtooth river stingray, albino plecostomus, redtail catfish, hybrid catfish (Tiger sorubim x Redtail catfish), finescale tigerfish, Jullien's golden carp, giant gourami, clown featherback, peacock bass (Tucanare and blue peacock bass), pirapitinga, giant pangasius, arowana (Silver and Asian arowana), and great tapah. The next, smaller open-topped tank is this crammed tank with a really weird mix that would make predator fish fans drooling to the floor. It had several barbs and carps (Bala sharks, tinfoil barbs, Hampala barbs, and Malayan mahseer), albino plecostomus, saddled bichirs, an iridescent shark, a pair of large Siberian sturgeon, and even two turtles (An pig-nosed turtle and an Malaysian giant turtle. A third, even smaller open-topped tank with bigtooth river stingrays, payaras, Florida gars, and an goliath tigerfish. The next tank is one of the best exhibit in Jakarta Aquarium, it houses dozens of red-bellied piranhas. The tank itself was pretty, with nice decors as well as a fake cattle corpse. There was also this "Piranha Cave", this dark corner that have a circular viewing glass to the backside of the tank. The piranhas were mostly in the front view of the tank, but still good.

Along the way from River of Indonesia to the next zone, there were food stands everywhere, not sure if this is temporary or permanent. The next zone was called "Jellyfish Magic", as its name suggest it houses jellyfish and several fishes as well. There were two wall tanks that houses white-spotted jellyfish. There were quite a lot of them. In between these two white-spotted jellyfish tanks, there were two other jellyfish tanks. There is a larger, but sparse wall tank with a few Indonesian sea nettles. There is also a interesting cylindrical tank with with sand substrate and seagrasses, with upside-down jellyfish and also some fishes, smaller Indian threadfish and torpedo scad. Quite far from that, there is this obscure corner but with two nice deep sea-themed cylindrical tanks. The first is this dark tank, dark enought that I can see the bioluminescent of several eyelight fish. Wonderful sight, my first time seeing them. This green neon lights just swimming around the tank. Inside the same tank, there was also three popeye catalufas, another nice species and one of the few Eastern Pacific native species. The next, much lighter tank is for Japanese pineapplefish and longspine snipefish, another good exhibit with nice species.

The final and main zone is the "Southern Sea" zone, the best zone in my opinion. There were several Javanese-themed decorations around, like this golden Asian dragon statue in the middle, since this was supposed to be themed around the seas off southern Java, which is the basis of several folktales in the island. The tank was great, minus this Christmas tree inside the tank which was only seasonal. The tank was sparser than I expected it to be, but it still have an green sea turtle in it. Other species in the tank that I could find are redbelly yellowtail fusiliers, yellowfin surgeonfish, streaked spinefoot, snubnose pompano, trevally (Golden and giant), brown-marbled grouper, stingrays (Ocellated eagle rays, cowtail stingray, and reticulate whipray), common shovelnose ray, and sharks (Zebra, tawny nurse, blacktip reef, and whitetip reef sharks). As I about to exit the aquarium, the mermaid show was about to start and there were a lot of peoples. I'm not really interested, so I went right to the exit. The last part of Jakarta Aquarium is a gift shop, selling several plushies and other stuffs. I think I spend like around three hours inside the aquarium. After burning my tongue eating at a curry restaurant, I went back home, as always greeted by traffic.

 

[Salt Merchant]

Review

I'm going to talk only a little about some of the Safari section because there's no need too and I also skipped it during my visit, but I'd always say this, this area was only meant to be a cash-grab, period. This mammals and bird were only there for nothing other than just to draw more average visitors, this type of animals were very popular in the exotic pet-side of Indonesian internet, and also for a quick fyp. Just absolute shame, this area was used to be good, minus the binturong and porcupines. The Asian water monitor and coconut crab exhibits was just the best thing I've ever seen, but they were just scrapped, to be replaced by these mammals that were there just as visitor magnets. There were also not going to be dominantly part of a conservation projects, so there's really no "Oh, there's still a breeding program for them right", there is not. They even have a pair of black-and-white ruffed lemurs, a critically endangered species that is doomed to extinction, as another visitor magnet, tucked away from their proper home and probably the suitable resource needed for a conservation program at Taman Safari Bogor to be there as something visitors and the aquarium itself to make a fyp off. Just no more words I could say about this area other than shameless and stupid.

On a positive note, the setting was great. The decor throughout the aquarium was pleasant, especially the one at Swirls and Jewels, as well as Diving Deep and River of Indonesia. During my visit, it was very crowded. I can't blame them, they were only looking for a good jolly-old holiday and doesn't seems to be all that bothered by it. I should've went earlier really.

Diving Deep

There were only three tanks, but they are all great and well decorated with anemones and live corals. The fish seems to be quite healthy and active too.

Safari Area

The otter exhibit has to be the best otter exhibit in Indonesia, quite natural with clear water. The lighting is also great. There was also a waterfall, which is a plus.

The axolotl tank was good, the dart frog terrarium is even better. The only dart frog exhibit in Indonesia yet the best, very, very natural. The terrarium for the tarantula and scorpion are kinda mixed, the one for the tarantula I found quite nice, but I couldn't say the same for the scorpion terrarium, it had almost no cover. The paludarium were also splendid and impressive, but I think not really for the animals. I don't really understand about the mix between the cave fish and the elephantnose fish, a really weird mix in my opinion, as opposed to pick either one of them. You can still had a choice of other co-inhabited species if you pick the elephantnose fish, Congo tetras and jewel cichlids might work great. The addition of the three spot gouramis and climbing perch were wonderful, but the turtles are not. The paludarium, while nice, are not large enough for these pair of turtles. It doesn't have a land area for them. They've been here in the same exhibit since the aquarium's opening, which is really suck.

The forest dragon exhibit was decent, but had enough foliage for the lizard. The herpetarium and insectarium are also decent. The orchid mantis terrarium is good, while the stick insect terrarium is decent minus the black plastic bag. The leopard geckos terrarium is small, but quite well decorated. The terrariums for the emerald tree skink and tree frogs are quite good, but really need more foliage.

Nursery of the Sea

The glass floor area were great, nice view of the fishes in the main tank. The glasses were thick enough that I don't think it transferred a significant vibrations. The tank is large though, if there is a vibration, it won't probably affected the fish and sea turtles much.

The mangrove-themed archerfish tank was also great and well decorated. The coastal aquarium was even better. A plethora of fishes in a large tank, with great lighting. The shallow tank is great for the inhabitants, except for that lone milkfish that was there for some reason.

Swirls and Jewels

The tarpon and large coral reef tank were all wonderful, same could be say for the donut-shaped tank. The Banggai cardinalfish tank was barren with no substrate, but the other two circular coral reef tanks were great. The cylindrical tanks were not that great, too small for most of their inhabitants. I don't understand why they put these pair of batfish on these crammed cylindrical tank, they are pretty and cool-looking when they were young while also fit enough in the tank, but they already passed that age. The sea horse and moray eel tanks were great. The garden eel tank was also another nice tank, thought the lighting is bad and the banded pipefish are not that fitting for the bare, sandy tank. The last tank is one of the best and one of my favorite. Lot of cover for the sea dragons.

Touch and Find

The touch pool was good, deep enough for most of the fish to not be that bothered. There is also a "resting pool", which is another plus. The silver fish tank was great, especially with the lighting. The giant isopod tank is also my favorite, nice lighting, substrate, and decors, really gave the bottom of the sea vibe. Couldn't say much really about the bamboo shark egg tank aside that it is great learning exhibit, but I had no idea why they put that lone filefish on there. The lobster tank wasn't good, just not that big enough for these lobsters. The cardinalfish tank was decent.

River of Indonesia

I'm absolutely ceritain that whoever curated the species in this area, has to be a absolute predator fish fanatic. The species mixing are seriously something I could see Indonesian predator fish owners do and those kids who watch predator fish YouTubers fantasied to do. Especially the tank with the sturgeons and turtles, just a disaster of a mix. But hey, the piranha tank was super great, probably because the management prevented whoever curated this area from removing the piranhas and put like Asian arowanas with dozens of pig-nosed turtles and potamotrygon stingrays, with several silver dollars and those L something plecostomus, also add several short-bodied, color morph, and other mutants to make it an "average Indonesian predator fish home aquarium-themed tank".

Jellyfish Magic

One of the good but not perfect zone of Jakarta Aquarium. The tanks for the white-spotted jellyfish are stocked and the jellyfish themselves are large and active. The sea nettle tank are sparse with only a few sea nettle left, probably on the verge of being entirely phased out. The upside-down jellyfish tank was quite cool, had no idea that they could be mix. The deep sea corner was super great but was sadly obscure for the general visitors.

Southern Sea

One of the best exhibit in Jakarta Aquarium, and in my opinion the best main saltwater aquarium tank in Indonesian aquaria, far better than the one in SeaWorld Ancol. The lighting were fitting and decoration were spot on, but the fishes in there seems sparser, despite of how big the tank was.

 

[Salt Merchant]

See here for the photos:
https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/categories/jakarta-aquarium-and-safari.3618/?page=3

Score

• Animal exhibits: 8/10
• Animal welfare: 7/10
• Aquarium's setting: 8/10

Species highlight

• Emerald tree skink
• Northern snake-necked turtle
• Malaysian giant turtle
• Pig-nosed turtle
• Golfodulcean poison frog
• Blue poison dart frog
• Dyeing poison dart frog
• Speckled sandperch
• Rockmover wrasse
• Eyelight fish
• Japanese pineapplefish
  
• Flame angelfish
• Emperor angelfish
• Longspine snipefish
  
• Weedy seadragon
• Clearfin lionfish
  
• Estuarine stonefish
• Popeye catalufa
  
• Zebra moray
  
• Barred moray
  
• Cobia
• Flapnose ray
  
• Ocellated eagle ray
• Common shovelnose ray
• Zebra shark
• Tawny nurse shark
  
• Blind cave fish
  
• Peters's elephantnosefish
• Jullien's golden carp
• Payara
• Goliath tigerfish
  
• Great tapah
• Siberian sturgeon
• White-spotted jellyfish
• Indonesian sea nettle
  
• Mangrove horseshoe crab
• Giant isopod

 

[Salt Merchant]

Species highlight

• Emerald tree skink
• Northern snake-necked turtle
• Malaysian giant turtle
• Pig-nosed turtle
• Golfodulcean poison frog
• Blue poison dart frog
• Dyeing poison dart frog
• Speckled sandperch
• Rockmover wrasse
• Eyelight fish
• Japanese pineapplefish
  
• Flame angelfish
• Emperor angelfish
• Longspine snipefish
  
• Weedy seadragon
• Clearfin lionfish
  
• Estuarine stonefish
• Popeye catalufa
  
• Zebra moray
  
• Barred moray
  
• Cobia
• Flapnose ray
  
• Ocellated eagle ray
• Common shovelnose ray
• Zebra shark
• Tawny nurse shark
  
• Blind cave fish
  
• Peters's elephantnosefish
• Jullien's golden carp
• Payara
• Goliath tigerfish
  
• Great tapah
• Siberian sturgeon
• White-spotted jellyfish
• Indonesian sea nettle
  
• Mangrove horseshoe crab
• Giant isopod

I forgot to add this, the green sea turtle was also among one of my highlight species at the aquarium. Especially seeing them in a large, spacious tank with fishes.

 

[Emanuel Theodorus]

I think overall speaking Jakarta Aquarium still more less the same than it was before. Missing Coconut Crab, Pacific Octopus, and Water Monitor definitely sucks, as well as mammals in exhibits that are too small for them.