ARC reef tank at the Georgia Aquarium?

[mojo]

This was considered when the Aquarium first opened. Steve Shindell, ARC president at the time, did the legwork and talked to Bruce Carlson, VP of Life Sciences, and Jeff Swanagan, executive directory before he passed away. While it was a stretch, everything was in place. However, there's a lot of red tape and other issues. The ones that I can remember:

- They were very picky about what we could do. We ended up being offered the very tall tank near the gift shop - the one that's about 8' tall and completely unusable for a reef. There's about 18" of clearance above it, for starters.
- Everything must be plumbed into the main Aquarium
- There was a big debate over who would maintain it
- We couldn't put it in or near the gift shop. The gift shop is owned and operated by another company, whose sole purpose is to make money. To put a tank in there would take up space.
- There's a huge quarantine issue, being the Aquarium

In the end, the logistics were just too difficult, and the idea was scrapped. Steve will need to fill in the details here.

I'm not saying that it's not a great idea, but rather that some serious thought and effort has been put into it WITH the right strings to pull, and we still couldn't make it happen. In the end, the Aquarium really doesn't want much to do with ARC. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it works.

If you want to see it happen, contact Steve (sshindell), and see what you can do.

 

[ichthyoid]

..."only a few "leet" reef keepers"...:unsure:

I met a 'leet' once...it was a f'leet'ing experience!


anyway-

As I recall, years ago some Atlanta area marine aquarists approached some folks connected with the then 'future Georgia Aquarium' about helping out, putting up a display, etc., and were 'politely declined'.

Personally, I think there is good reason to question if 'amateur aquarists' may have furthered the 'science' of successful captive aquarium culture more than the 'professionals' have. Especially in the past 25 years. I am an educated man, but firmly believe in the premise of "necessity being the mother of invention". This has certainly been the case where innovation in this 'hobby' is concerned.

I think that this may be the PR angle to use with the Georgia Aquarium. Highlighting the contributions of countless individual 'amateurs' that helped jump-start modern 'aquari-culture' (if that's a word) and the resulting increase in knowledge. Many (if not most) of the pioneers we owe our collective gratitude to were simply 'highly determined amateurs'. Some of them are among this community. Why not celebrate that? We might even spark interest in a future Jacques Cousteau, who started out as an amateur photographer. If ARC gets a plug in the process, GREAT!

I think your idea is a good one. We might get some to think, 'why not me'?

 

[sshindell]

Chris gave a very good synopsis of the history. While ARC IS mentioned in the Georgia Aquarium book and we enjoy a good relationship, I doubt the exhibit will work out in the future. The gallaries are going through some major renovations, and there are bigger fish to fry right now than an ARC exhibit. We tried to look at the gift shop tank, and I even took Anthony Calfo and Steven Pro over there to try to get some ideas, and we were all stumped on how to make it work. That area will be redone at some point, and maybe it will be possible at this time.

 

[phoenix20]

Cool. Thanks for the history on this, and sorry it didn't work out the first time around... Maybe its time to ping the Georgia Aquarium guys again and see if they're open for us to actually keep a reef tank there?

I'd be open to having ARC maintain it -- heck, i'll volunteer my own time to do whatever was necessary. I think other folks in the group would be super excited to see some frags of their acros on display as well. =) It would be a cool bonding event.

So, why don't we try to revisit this with the folks at the Aquarium? We could approach and say that ARC will be responsible for mainenance and stocking the tank -- we'll follow whatever quarantene guidelines they have in place -- all we want to do is share the joy we take out from the hobby with other people who are interested in starting their own reef setups at home?

I think it would be a really cool attraction for the Aquarium and would help bring folks in. Seeing the thousands of different fish they have on display is breath tanking, but there is just a certain AWE of an absolutly beautiful display of corals thats missing.

There are a _few_ corals there -- a huge leather, some bubble tips, xenia, etc in the "wave crashing over your head area" but its really no comparison to a reef display that we as a club could put together.

So what do you say guys? Worth another shot? We'll keep pestering for years until we get to show off a crazy display? :yay:

 

[corigan]

The Softie reef tank they have up in the office/schooling area that you see on the behind the scenes tour is rather nice.

 

[grouper therapy]

JennM;403412 wrote: I don't know for certain but I think th<u>ere would be quarantine issues with private individuals bringing livestock into the aquarium </u></em>- even if it is in a separate system. Maybe Sally or someone could chime on on that...

Jenn

I agree I would not expose my livestock to their water.

 

[jennm]

That's not what I meant.

IIRC, the second SWU was held at the Aquarium, and there was some sort of issue with vendors bringing livestock to exhibit/sell and they had to arrange another venue away from GAI for those vendors.

Perhaps Steve Shindell or someone who was more on the front lines in organizing the event can clarify that. All I know is that for the first SWU, I accepted delivery and held a considerable quantity of livestock just prior to the event, and brought it to the venue (Zoo Atlanta for that event)... and when I volunteered to do the same for the second SWU, it was discovered there was a problem with bringing livestock to the GAI, and I think it had something to do with their protocol.

Jenn

 

[grouper therapy]

I was joking. Way a minute not really!! lol

 

[sshindell]

Again, Jenn is correct (and she was amazingly helpful). The quarentine procedures are very strict and as a result we could not have frag swaps, vendors, etc. It is not just as simple as putting things in a tank. Most animals are in quarentine for at least a month. Equipment is not used between exhibits without strict sterilization. Similarly, GAI will very, very rarely accept stuff from aquarists, such as a shark that overgrows your tank. There are a large list of retrictions.

 

[phoenix20]

So, if we were to set up a reef tank up there, we would just all need to decide what livestock was going in, right? Have a meeting, and we could draw out which frags would go where -- etc.

Collect the frags from the members, then drop them into quaranteene at GAI for 1-2 months?

Any additions to the tank after that would just have to sit through quarantine for a while before it ever made its way into the DT? Kind of like how its supposed to be at home, right? :doh:

I dont really see the quarantine thing as a road blocker, we would just need to spend a bit more time planning exactly what frags / colonies would go in the DT -- because any change to the plan after that has gotta wait a few months.