How many of you have visited a Public Aquarium? and more...

[_Jessica_]

I've been to the Florida Aquarium, and the New England Aquarium, plus a lot of zoos, and probably more aquariums when I was a kid.

I really liked the Florida Aquarium...my favorite exhibits are the "wetlands" area and the Aquariumania exhibit. I wasn't totally into fish when I lived in FL, so I can't remember many specific fish.
Wetlands...it was really neat to be kind of "up close and personal" with the fish. Plus turtles, birds, etc all in there.

And the aquariumania was neat...I don't think it was totally finished when I was there, but I remember this huge tank. I know most people here are into preds but it is beautiful.

They also had shark tanks, a ginormous goliath grouper, and a few other neat interactive exhibits.


The New England Aquarium...leaves something to be desired. They feature a lot of fish, and I'm sure they do a lot of things for the aquatic community, but the displays really aren't "impressive". They do have a gigantic cylindrical tank in the middle, which is pretty cool, with sharks, sea turtles, green moray, and a lot of saltie schooling fish. One of my favorite exhibits there had arowana, severums, angels, and lots more. I guess it feels like I'm walking around a LFS than a public aquarium...it's not very interactive, and pretty much all the displays are just the same. They had one reef tank, and one tank with more common salties (tangs, triggers..)...I was hoping for a little more on that side of things.

 

[frnchjeep]

I've been to all the ones that are local enough to make a day trip out of.

 

[sahir99]

i went to georgia aquarium and i liked river scout it had piranahas and otters catfish my fav was the tiger muskys

 

[ceeej31]

ive been to several aquariums and zoos with aquariums with my favorite exhibit so far being Amazon Rising at Shedd, Animal Planet Australia: Wild Extremes at Baltimore and Amazonia at the National Zoo

 

[cobra29svt]

I'm a member of the Baltimore aquarium, which is pretty much the equivalent of having a season pass. We do get invites to special events there though. My wife and I went to a black tie dinner and got to walk through the aquarium in evening wear with about 20 other people. (Normally that place is packed to the ... gills)

My favorite exhibit is the Australian section, they have some amazing setups there with caimans and huge turtles, native fish and plants. They're set up as 4' pond-paludariums, so people can get both top-down views and side-views through the 4" acrylic walls.

I grew up in Chicago and used to spend a lot of time at Shedd, which is also an amazing aquarium.

I went to the Baltimore Aquarium last weekend, & also liked the caiman display. I'd have to say the gar & sturgeon tank was my favorite. Overall, I was kinda disappointed w/ the aquarium. It was nice, but not worth the time, hassle, & money involved w/ the trip.

 

[S1MSTA]

I think i went to 1 or 2 when i was younger but cant remember.

 

[polish]

Been a while, seeing if anyone else has anything to add.

Also please vote if you haven't already.

 

[alexanian]

I was in the Turquazoo Aquarium in Istanbul. Had some nice displays like a huge reef tank with sharks and rays that had a 80 meter long tunel going through it. I liked the amazon and african cichlids tanks though there was lots of saltwater very nice tanks too. I didn't like that there was no labels ( maybe only few labels ) and I also felt that there is very little freshwater tanks.