Oregon Coast Aquarium Oregon Coast Aquarium News

The Aquarium's exhibit page states that the Connected Coasts Gallery & Jellies Gallery will both be opening on October 31st. No images or species information from what I can find so far, I'm hoping to make the drive down sometime next month to check it out for myself since to my knowledge, this should be the last of the major renovations they had in store.
 
Some more information about both exhibits has come out via the exhibit pages, it's looking pretty exciting:

Jelly Gallery | 4 Species will be on display for the opening, these include
  • Pacific Sea Nettles (Chrysaora fuscescens)
  • Spotted Lagoon Jellies (Mastigius papua)
  • Blue Blubber Jellies (Catostylus mosaicus)
  • Greater Moon Jellies (Aurelia labiata) (This one isn't confirmed species wise, but considering it is the species that is local between Vancouver BC to the very bottom of Oregon, I'm assuming it's this one).
Also, the Moon Jellies will be housed in a Sphere / Snow Globe Tank, like the one at PDZA & Florida Aquarium, which *allegedly* makes it now 1 of 3 in the country.

Connected Coasts |
  • Indo-Pacific Reef Tank with Yellow Tangs, Maculosus Angelfish, Lyretail Anthias, Birdnose Wrasse, and more (including LIve Corals)
  • Kelp Forest Tank that will feature species from both Oregon & California, there is a picture of a California Moray as a representative (hopefully will be in the exhibit)
  • "Live Corals" sounds like a Coral highlight area that will be showcasing various corals individually
  • Sea Mount Tank (Not a Deep-Sea Sea Mount like Monterey Bay) sounds like a circular tank (Says 360degree view) that sits in the center of the gallery with live corals, and it mentions Eels as well.
Mangrove Forest (looks like it features both Live and Fake Mangroves) says it will house fish that are typically found in a South Pacific Mangrove Forest, so potentially Archerfish, Monos, Scats, etc will be housed in here.

I'm not sure if the Aquarium still has their Soupfin Sharks or Brown Smooth Hound Sharks, but honestly the Seven Gills by themselves are enough to make me visit. I should hopefully have an opportunity here soon to drive down and get a species list + photos of everything.
 
Looks like I'll have a chance to go down in a couple weeks so I'll definitely get a species list + a plethora of photos since all the renovations are complete.

As far as new species that a friend gathered pics of + what I've seen on social media:
  • Blue Spotted Ribbontail Ray in the Mangrove Tank
  • Bangaii Cardinalfishes and a Gem Tang in the Mangrove Tank
  • Honeycomb Moray, Zebra Moray, and a few other species i couldn't ID since just their head was sticking out are in the Seamount Tank
  • Potbelly Seahorses are on exhibit (pretty nice to see this species)
  • The largest Reef tank is actually all artificial corals but they do have smaller living Reef displays that look pretty nice
  • From a short clip of the Kelp Forest Tank i saw there looks to be Flag Rockfish, Halfmoons, Seniorita Wrasses, Spiny Lobster, and a few others (surprisingly no Garibaldi)
General consensus I'm starting to gather is this might be one of the most underrated aquariums in the country, I'll see if it lives up to that idea I'm forming but excited to visit.
 
Other First Half 2025 News Not Mentioned:
Smaggledagle said:
On June 4th, the aquarium announced they received a $500,000 donation from the Marcia H. Randall Foundation towards their new Marine Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, which will start construction in 2025. The aquarium also announced that the foundation issued a challenge grant which if reached would give the aquarium another 500K towards the new building.

Oregon Coast Aquarium
Click to expand...

On March 21st, the aquarium announced they started construction on the new Sis-Xa Xwee-Nish Marine Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in late 2024 to be completed in 2026.

Oregon Coast Aquarium
OCAq Reaches Key Milestone in Building Marine Wildlife Center - Oregon Coast Aquarium

On April 2nd, the aquarium announced that a (1.0) turkey vulture named Ichabod passed away due to a rapid decline in health.

Oregon Coast Aquarium

On June 3rd, the aquarium announced they celebrated (0.1) harbor seal named Skinny's 50th birthday.

Oregon Coast Aquarium

On July 5th, the aquarium announced they acquired a long-spined porcupinefish named Cholla and a panther grouper named Gibson, which are now on display in the Seamount tank.

Oregon Coast Aquarium

* Worth mentioning that the tufted puffin that hatched in late July 2024 passed away in late August 2024, and they moved 2+ basket stars on display in the former giant Pacific octopus exhibit in November 2024. The aquarium also announced they helped rehabilitate and transferred a loggerhead sea turtle and a olive ridley sea turtle to SeaWorld San Diego in California to be released into the wild.
 
 
From what visitor posts I can find, it appears:
  • There are currently South American Sea Nettles (Chrysaora plocamia) on exhibit in the "Jellies" gallery, the Pacific Sea Nettles are off exhibit.
  • A Falco Hawkfish (Cirrhitichthys falco) was added to the Mangrove exhibit in the "Connected Coasts" gallery
I'm going to try and make one more visit before the end of the year, though it doesn't look like much has changed since my visit back in January in terms of fish additions
 
The Aquarium did a revamp of their website that now includes a ton of new species that weren't previously on exhibit (at least when I visited), this definitely solidifies my attempt to hopefully make 1 more visit before the end of the year. I completely retract my previous statement of their being not many fish additions.
  • Ornate Boxfish (Aracana ornata) in the 'Connected Coasts' gallery (Assuming they're with the Pot-bellied Seahorses, that tank is a little small for them if i remember correctly, but it's similarly sized to Birch's tank where they also house the two species. Happy to see another aquarium that's a little closer to me exhibit the species)
  • Slimy Snailfish (Liparis mucosus) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Sandfish (Trichodon trichodon) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Plainfin Midshipman (Porichthys notatus) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Pinnate Batfish (Platax pinnatus) in the 'Connected Coast' gallery
  • Pacific Herring (Clupea pallasii) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Christmas Tree Worms (Spirobranchus giganteus) in the 'Connected Coast' gallery (which I'm really happy about because despite being in the aquarium trade at times, no aquariums seem to exhibit them for some reason despite being better equipped than the average hobbyist)
  • East Pacific Red Octopus (Octopus rubescens) in the 'Rocky Coast' gallery
  • Squat Lobsters (Mundia spp.) in the 'Rocky Coast' gallery
  • Stout Crangon Shrimp (Crangon alba) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Turtle Crab (Cryptolithodes sitchensis) in the 'Rocky Coast' gallery
I don't see why these would be outdated/inaccurate since they're uploading new species everyday and this is a recent revamp so it should be accurate hopefully. They also list as having a Barn Owl, Brown Pelican, and American Kestrel as ambassador species which I didn't know about previously.
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
  • Ornate Boxfish (Aracana ornata) in the 'Connected Coasts' gallery (Assuming they're with the Pot-bellied Seahorses, that tank is a little small for them if i remember correctly, but it's similarly sized to Birch's tank where they also house the two species. Happy to see another aquarium that's a little closer to me exhibit the species)
  • Slimy Snailfish (Liparis mucosus) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Sandfish (Trichodon trichodon) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Plainfin Midshipman (Porichthys notatus) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Pinnate Batfish (Platax pinnatus) in the 'Connected Coast' gallery
  • Pacific Herring (Clupea pallasii) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Christmas Tree Worms (Spirobranchus giganteus) in the 'Connected Coast' gallery (which I'm really happy about because despite being in the aquarium trade at times, no aquariums seem to exhibit them for some reason despite being better equipped than the average hobbyist)
  • East Pacific Red Octopus (Octopus rubescens) in the 'Rocky Coast' gallery
  • Squat Lobsters (Mundia spp.) in the 'Rocky Coast' gallery
  • Stout Crangon Shrimp (Crangon alba) in the 'Sandy Coast' gallery
  • Turtle Crab (Cryptolithodes sitchensis) in the 'Rocky Coast' gallery
Click to expand...
Based on my visit yesterday, I can confirm the only species from the list that's actually on exhibit at the moment is the Pacific Herring sadly. It appears the website archive is a compilation of animals that were previously on exhibit, or will be in the future so it's not completely accurate for present species.
However, some general updates I can identify are:
  • The "Jellies" Gallery current species lineup includes: South American Sea Nettles / Pacific Sea Nettles / Greater Moon Jellies / Red-eyed Medusas & Halimedusa typus (very rare Hydrozoan that is only found in Oregon and California)
  • Unfortunately it appears there are no more Big Skates as their signage was removed + I didn't see any in the "Halibut Flats" tunnel exhibit. Hopefully they'll get more back soon.
  • I counted at least 3 Tope/School/Soupfin Sharks in the "Open Sea" Tunnel exhibit, possibly 4 but I did see 3 at one time on many occasions so I'll stick with 3 being on exhibit. Pretty significant since they're just 1 of 2 Aquariums to exhibit them, and Aquarium of the Bay (the other aquarium with them) only has 1 I believe. They do stick to the lower half of the aquarium 99% of the time though which makes photos super tricky since it's a tunnel.
There were a few new species additions throughout the galleries that I'll highlight in the new species list I'm making right now since i can't remember them off the top of my head. But still, an amazing Aquarium that solidfies the Pacific Northwest region as having one of the strongest grouping of Aquariums in the country (OCA, Seattle, PDZA, and Vancouver Aquarium would be considered "PNW" region)
 
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