Behind the Scenes at Sea World

[seafansar]

My local club, ORCA, had a fun day at Sea World in Orlando where we got to go behind the scenes. We got to go on tours of the quarantine area, Atlantis, and Manta. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures at the quarantine area. They had turtles, baby sharks, salt and fresh water fish. They use huge skimmers (probably 20ft tall!), sand filters, and UV sterilizers to keep their tanks clean. We didn't go on the Atlanta tour, because we wanted to watch some shows instead and we heard during lunch that it was a scaled down version of the Manta tour.
The Manta tour was really neat! They have a giant, 1,000+ gallon, reef tank, stingray pool, and sea dragon tank. Here are some pictures:

Reef tank from above. The lights were suspended by a boat lift!

Reef tank from the front.

 

[seafansar]

Stingray tank

I wanted to jump in!

Sea dragon tank. The guy who takes care of them treats them like his babies! He try's really to keep them healthy and happy and is trying to get them to breed.

Cold water anemone.

Flamingos being walked around in the dolphin exhibit.

 

[Shazbah]

Nice pics and thanks for sharing
Sharon

 

[seafansar]

Thanks! Here's a funny sea lion playing with his food:

Sea World :: P4140288.flv video by _eyesthatstare_ - Photobucket


Sea World :: P4140290.flv video by _eyesthatstare_ - Photobucket

 

[seafansar]

The freshwater stingray tank that you can only see from the wait line to manta is awesome! On one side they are black with white spots and brown with white spots on the other. And there were discus in with them.

 

[Frankie]

Awesome Sara! Thanks for sharing

 

[staresatrocks]

Thanks for sharing - great photos!

 

[essmaker]

Way cool. Would be great to see in person. Thanks

 

[ddinox64]

Looked like a great day.

 

[1Reefer]

Wow! Just wow, thast reef is huge, and beautiful... I don't feel so bad now lol I saw they had some bubble algae, and some big ones at that!

Thanks for sharing the great pics!

 

[seafansar]

lol. They even have aiptasia! There's a CBB keeping them under control, but it's such a big tank, it can't get them all.

 

[1Reefer]

Ha!... but in all seriousness I bet it would be so hard to keep any sort of baddie out for good, and once its in... pshhh I'm sure it'd be almost imposible to get rid of it in a reasonable way...

 

[lcstorc]

They have an awesome display. I'm took a bunch of pictures but I am not sure what happened to them.
There was a huge clam. There were at least a dozen people who came by while I was staring who had no idea it was a clam and were shocked when I told them.

 

[seafansar]

Did you go on the same day Lynn? I know other clubs in florida were invited.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Great pics - thanks for sharing!

PS - Love your husky puppy /avatar - our family has had huskies all our lives, they are real lovers, great dogs !

 

[seafansar]

Thanks! She's great. Only 12 weeks, but about 8 weeks when that picture was taken. I'm a little nervous after reading all the background on huskies with their prey drive, blowing coat, and ease of jumping fences, but hopefully we can handle her. I go on walks with her at a nearby park, we've taken her to the beach, and she already knows sit, stay, down, heel, and give me her paw pretty well. My mom does dog rescue, so I'm used to living with, on average, 8 dogs at one time. It makes having only one dog, even a puppy, seem like a breeze!