Have you ever been to an aquarium to see all the beautiful fish swimming around? Well, there is a whole other side of the aquarium that the public hardly ever gets to see. Behind the scenes is where aquarists, like me, spend most of their time preparing food, maintaining life support, and monitoring water quality. Let’s dive right into a day in the life of a professional aquarist!
Most days start with turning on all the lights and looking into every single exhibit to make sure all the animals are happy and healthy. We also have to check all of the life support to make sure it’s functioning properly.
What’s life support you ask? Life support is all the plumbing that circulates and filters the water to keep it clean, healthy, and clear for all the fish that live in it. As aquarists we are responsible for cleaning the filters, fixing any leaks, and keeping pump motors running smoothly.
Image by Dani Jensen
After we are sure everything is running smoothly and all the fishes are healthy, it’s time to feed! Feeding time is definitely guests and aquarists’ favorite part of the day.
We start by thawing our food items the day before and then chopping it into appropriately sized pieces depending on how big the fish are that we are preparing it for. We chop up lots of different food items such as squid, smelt, capelin, and shrimp.
Image by Dani Jensen
There are two main ways we feed the exhibits: broadcast feeding and target feeding. Broadcast feeding is how we feed most of the animals. It’s what you might think of when you imagine feeding a bunch of fish. The aquarist will throw the food across the tank in a quick manner to make sure food is spread out enough that all the fish have a chance to eat.
Target feeding is the opposite where we give specific food to individuals. Animals, like our bamboo sharks, are trained to come to the surface and wait for food at a station. Target feeding is important for icon animals and animals that are bottom dwellers because that way we can make sure they are eating, do visual health checks, and record the amounts that they consume.
Another important task in our day is checking water quality. We have a laboratory with many water quality tests to help up determine how healthy our water is. We are testing for different elements in the nitrogen cycle: ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Ideally the levels of these compounds will measure at zero, but if there are detectable levels, it can tell us a lot about how our water is cycling, and how healthy the fish are.
If we test an exhibit and it has bad water quality the most common fix is to take around 30% of the dirty water out, and replace it with clean and filtered new water. This is called a water change and it is the bread and butter of being an aquarist.
Next time you go to your local zoo or aquarium I hope you’ll keep in mind all of the hard-working aquarists who are cleaning, scrubbing, chopping, and troubleshooting behind the scenes.
Aquariums are important facilities where education and conservation are paramount. And without you visiting and learning, we aquarists wouldn’t have jobs we are so passionate about.
