My Visit to the Georgia Aquarium
 

Last week I had the good fortune to visit the Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest.

Here are some videos I took of the 6.3 million gallon main tank. Sorry but its just a camera video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuH11nO7_6A
http://s373.photobucket.com/albums/o...eg2video-1.flv
http://s373.photobucket.com/albums/o...quarium107.flv

The main tank from the top.
http://i373.photobucket.com/albums/o...quarium064.jpg
http://i373.photobucket.com/albums/o...quarium066.jpg

Wow I'm more interested in your two pictures. Did you get some behind-the-scenes tour? Staring across that shark-filled water to see the two dingies sorta gives me the willies!

Thanks for sharing.

The 160,000 gallon reef tank.
http://i373.photobucket.com/albums/o...quarium043.jpg

Lighting the reef tank.
http://i373.photobucket.com/albums/o...quarium070.jpg

The wavebox. The buckets fills and then pivot down, producing a surge.
http://i373.photobucket.com/albums/o...quarium071.jpg

Yes, I took the behind the scenes tour. The dingies are used to feed the whale sharks individually. The rope lines you see strung across the tank are used to pull the dingies along and feed the whale sharks. Whales sharks either feed by "ramming" their feed horizontally or "lifting" from the bottom. Since the tank is only 30 ft deep, they want to keep training the whale sharks to "ram" feed.

Wonder how thick that glass is? maybe i could work something like that into my basment:becky:

Hahaha it's easily a foot thick or more and it's actually acrylic. I had the good fortune of being able visit back in November, loved it. You can even go diving in their tank!! If I ever have to go back I'm totally doing that.

Great pictures!!

I was told that the acrylic was 12" thick.

I so wish I had brought my prescription mask with me. I definitely would have done the main tank dive and may go back just to do that.

cool vid.. i think the most amazing thing is watching schooling fish

The main viewing window on that tank (the whale shark tank) is 2 feet thick (says their website, but I've also read 25 and 27 inches).

Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing!

And wow, i DIG the wave-box!

Were you there on business or vacation? The reason I ask is if it was vacation, what else is there to do there?:biggrin:

I was there on business and added a personal day to go to the aquarium. Not sure what else there is to do there. Coke has a big exhibit next to the aquarium and CNN headquarters are close by.

I'd say Atlanta is worthy of a vacation of say a few days. I'm kind of hoping to drag my family there to the aquarium (I was there on biz so the kids missed out on the aquarium :( ). But I'd probably combine it with a trip to visit some friends up in the Carolina's or something like that.

There's also the Coca-Cola museum. Time was limited for me so I couldn't check it out but it's right next door to the aquarium. Think they also have a zoo.

So I'd say probably each of those is worthy of a day. So a long-weekend thing would be perfect, maybe stretchable up to a week but probably not really any longer than that, unless you put another destination into the mix (like, say, go on over to Savannah for a few days and so on).

FYI for anyone who is thinking of going...

The behind the scenes tour has to be booked well in advance. You can do so online. Well worth it!

If I was able to convince my wife, she might like it for the day but knowing her I would have to find somewhere else to take her, she isn't as much of a fish lover as I am. Tolerates me at best, but thats got nothing to do with the fish.:lol:

What's she into? Here, check out this list.

http://www.atlanta.net/50fun/completelist.asp

When I was there, one of the museums was advertising an exhibit all about gold, which I thought kinda sounded interesting and wished I had had the time to go check that out too. I'll see if I can find a link for it.

Here it is:

http://www.fernbankmuseum.org/museum...ldExhibit.aspx

Also Savannah sounds pretty neat. Dunno if ghost stories float you or your wife's boat at all, but I know my wife would be all over this sort of thing if I managed to get us down there: http://www.savannahtours.us/?event=o...0in%20Savannah :lol: Could be fun?

Go in April and then head over to Augusta for the Masters! ;)

You're really trying to get me in trouble.:mrgreen: Will look at some of the other things as well, but this sounds like a nice road trip when I retire.:biggrin: