Oh S.E.A. Where do we begin. In our travels we’re fortunate enough to visit a hodgepodge of public aquariums. Often times we get to see behind the scenes, to the heart of the facility, where the quiet humming of machines and staff strive to set the gold standard of display. While most aquariums aim to captivate, educate and enthral, some just do it better. The public aquariums at Long Island, Omaha and Steinhart are some of the best we’ve seen, and joining the list is Singapore’s S.E.A aquarium.
S.E.A’s Marine Life Park is a public aquarium located in Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore. Although newly opened just three years ago, the facility is home to over 100,000 animals, with a total water volume of 45 million gallons. The largest display featuring animals of the open ocean contains 4.8 million gallons of water, and includes charismatic titans such as Tuna, Sawfish, Manta rays and other unusual fish. Fascinating and incredible as this may be, the title for most captivating set up has to belong to the coral reef exhibit.
At only two years old, and with only 5,200 gallons of water, the coral reef exhibit packs as much wow factor as it can possibly squeeze. This system, despite being rather new, is stunning in its own right and we’re dying to see how it develops over the years. A plethora of SPS corals dominate the aquascape, and the water, a literal suspension of fish. A Pseudanthias bouillabaisse makes up a large portion of the fish species present, and believe me when we say this, these are some of the most ridiculously colored anthiines we have ever seen.
This article is laced throughout with photos taken from this tank, but we’ll also include at the end, a photographic gallery featuring a larger collection of pictures. You may notice that some of these fishes strike a familiar chord, and you’re not wrong. When I decommissioned my home aquarium a couple of weeks ago, I donated all my fish to this facility, and some of them (like the Tigerpyge above), were re-homed to this coral display. Many of these have been featured right here in ReefBuilders before.
For those curious on the specificities of this system, a mixture of 400W and 1000W 14,000K metal halides are used to light up this display. Two banks of eight tube 5 ft ATI T5’s are also used as supplementation. To meet the demands of the rapidly growing corals, a huge customized Deltec fluidized calcium reactor is utilized. The water is filtered through two loops, a bag filter loop and a gravitational AAT foam fractionation loop, which gets degassed into the bio filter. The aquarium is powered by two Abyzz pumps of 40,000 ltr p/h and a large commercial pool pump of 30,000 ltr p/h.
To upkeep the ridiculous number of Pseudanthias and other fishes, this tank is fed three times daily with a cocktail of Pacifica krill, frozen cyclops, Calanus copepods and chopped table shrimp. The tank gets a New Era grazing diet once a week for the herbivorous Tangs. The heavy feedings and utilization of carotenoid rich foods have gone a long way in maintaining the health and vibrancy of some of these anthias.
The photo gallery above is pretty picture intensive, but if that’s not enough, we’ve taken the liberty of videoing this incredible display. A couple panorama Manta shots found their way in, but only because that overhead dome was way too ridiculously cool. Be sure to watch the clip in full HD. A huge thanks to Aaron Brett, Jason Lim and the rest of the S.E.A team for indulging us in our nerdy banter, flashing cameras and endless questions. Also a huge personal thanks for adopting my fish collection and taking care of them.
