Building Specific Galleries - Reef Deck Tour - FAQ
How thick is the panoramic window?
- Acrylic Window
- 12 inches think (1 foot)
Why is it acrylic and not glass?
- Glass windows of this size are not manufactured.
- Glass windows are not strong enough to withstand the water pressure.
- Acrylic is type of plastic, which is stronger and more lightweight than glass.
- Acrylic does not distort the size of the objects inside the tank like glass would.
Where do you get the water?
- Seawater is barged in from the Gulf of Mexico.
How often is the water changed?
- We do a 10% water change on the reef exhibit every 6 weeks.
Where does the water that is changed, go to?
- To the sanitary systems and Hooker’s Point waste treatment plant.
- It is treated as sewage because animals have lived in it.
How do you maintain the temperature of the exhibit?
- In the summer and fall, we use chilled water to cool the temp if it gets above 75 degrees.
- In the winter and spring, we fire up the fast powered water heater in the filter yard.
How do you make ozone?
- We pass electric current through dry air in an ozone generator. Water is passed through the ozone to purify the water. Then the ozone is taken out before the water is put into an exhibit because ozone is dangerous to living organisms.
What happens if ozone leaks out?
- We have safety systems to prevent that from happening. But if a leak ever did occur, a lead detector would trigger the automatic shut-off.
Do you filter the water in the reef exhibit?
- It is continuously filtered through the filtration system so that all the water in the exhibit goes through the filters once ever hour.
What is coral – a plant or an animal?
- It is a colony of animals. The little animals inside the coral look like upside down jellyfish. The animal itself is what makes the hard skeleton we see. The actual coral animal is called a “polyp”.
Is the coral in the exhibit real?
- No, it’s fabricated. Some types of coral can take 65 years to grow one inch. We could not grow coral that quickly in the tank to get it to look like it does now.
- Coral is very delicate, and dies if you rub against it.
- We would not want to collect all this coral to put in our tank because it would have displaced many animals which are dependant on coral reefs for their survival.
Do you have real coral in the aquarium?
- Yes, in the small tank across from the panoramic window. “Corals Alive”
Why isn’t there more real coral?
- We are a facility dedicated to conservation and we do not need any more coral. We do not want to collect any more coral than we need to help in conservation.
- You need a permit to collect coral, that also helps in conservation.
When you are diving do you have to be careful not to damage the real coral reef?
- Yes, you have to be careful because if you touch the coral you can kill it.
- When we are diving we are entering other animals environment and must respect that.
How do you clean the fake coral in the exhibit?
- We scrub it to keep algae from building up on it. This helps to maintain the health of our artificial reef.
Why did they choose those colors for the corals?
- Because those colors would best represent what you would see on a typical coral reef in the Florida Keys.
What are those yellow wavy things that look like ferns?
- Those are a type of soft coral called sea plumes. There are two types of coral, hard and soft. Hard corals are the ones that build reefs.
- Soft corals lack the heavy lime skeleton which makes the hard corals able to withstand the currents. Soft corals flow back and forth with the waves.
Are the sponges real?
- No, they are also fabricated. In an effort to protect the coral reef habitats of Florida, animals like sponges and corals are replicated and not collected.
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