Behind the Scenes

There is so much more going on behind the scenes at The London Aquarium than many visitors realise. The area where most of the activity takes place behind the scenes is called Quarantine. This is where we carry out all our husbandry, which involves preparing the marine diets, monitoring health and animal behaviour, as well as all our breeding programmes and undergraduate research.  It represents approximately 1/5^th of the floor space of the whole Aquarium and is the largest department within the Aquarium.

The Quarantine section is 1,800 Sq meters and contains about 400,000 litres of water and each week we produce 30,000 litres of seawater, which is pumped to all the salt water displays in the attraction.
Daily operations for the Quarantine department includes analysis of water parameters, diving to feed various fish and a huge amount of underwater cleaning.

Every day, 15-20 kg of food is used for the whole aquarium. Daily foods are supplemented with vitamins to replace those lost by the freezing process and to enhance other food stuffs.

All aquatic animals receive nutritionally similar diets to that which they would obtain in their natural habitat and all efforts are made to ensure the animals living in the London Aquarium experience as near to their usual environment conditions as possible. Aquarists use about 15 different varieties of food including their own cultured artemia (brine shrimp), rotifers and bananas.
We ensure a huge variety of diets are catered for and keep check of all the animals’ health with the help of one of the UK’s top fish vets.

A Typical Day as an Aquarist

	Typical Day as an Aquarist
	9am	Check health of all animals, then clean all windows in tanks.
	10am	Clean the life support system filters and record water quality.
	11am	Prepare food and feed the fish, including vitamin supplements and specially made diets for specialist feeders.
	1pm	Lunch hour
	2pm	Dive into the tanks to clean the walls and feed the animals. Usually done in team of 3.
	3pm	Work on breeding programme for endangered species.
	4pm	Answer press enquiries or tour a specialist interest group around the Aquarium.
	5pm	Check life support systems are working ok and record what the animals have eaten or any behavioural changes in the animals.