OdySea Aquarium debuts 3 new exhibits | Get Out | ahwatukee.com - Ahwatukee Foothills News

OdySea Aquarium made a splash with the start of its seventh year last week, unveiling new exhibits and replacing its Snack Shack with a Starbuck's.

 "We're always growing and evolving," said OdySea Aquarium director of public relations Karin Gallo. "We're continuing to be a great business that's interactive and educational while also being a space for people to celebrate special occasions." 

When guests now step inside the dimly lit entrance, they are greeted by a school of over 600 Palometa fish in a 10,000-gallon circular aquarium. 

"One of the goals for guests walking into our lobby, which is already beautiful with our unique fish, was just to impact them right away," said David Peranteau, OdySea Aquarium director of animal care and conservation. "I feel like this exhibit really does that. There's a lot of movement and beautiful colors." 

The exhibit educates visitors on aquaculture, the controlled cultivation of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants. 

The fish in this exhibit were bred in an aquaculture facility. 

"Aquaculture is getting more and more important because the levels of wild fisheries are constantly under strain," Peranteau said. 

"Aquaculture allows organizations, whether governmental or private, to have these large ponds where they grow these fish from eggs be sold either into the food industry or to be released into the wild or sold to facilities like ours." 

As guests mosey through the rest of the aquarium, they will eventually enter an acrylic tunnel where they are surrounded by tropical fish, corals and organisms that can be seen in Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

The tunnel leads to of a 10-foot-tall, 1,000-gallon aquarium that houses over 170 organisms like wrasses, Dutch triggerfishes, parrotfish, anthias and living coral. 

 "Most of those animals are from the South Pacific from areas like the Caribbean Reef and the Red Sea," Peranteau said.

"Animals from there, whether they're corals or fish, tend to be a lot brighter, a lot more beautiful and also larger in size than some of their Caribbean counterparts." 

However, the animals were not yanked directly from those habitats but rather were collected from other institutions accredited through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Peranteau said.

"There are a lot of zoos and aquariums out there that have established coral exhibits and since corals grow most of their lives, a lot of times they'll get to the point where they can be shared with other aquariums," he explained.

 "So instead of going out into the wild and taking corals out of the wild, our goal was to bring as many in from other zoos and aquariums as we could." 

However, Peranteau  admitted that acclimating th creatures to a new aquarium can be a lengthy process. 

"The animals go through a minimum 30-day quarantine period where they are examined for any health issues before they're introduced to our large exhibit," Peranteau said. 

Each animal also requires a special placement in the aquarium to ensure that each species has access to a healthy amount of light. 

"Trying to get the right amount of light all the way to the bottom is doable but it's challenging," Parenteau said. "We want to make sure the light at the top isn't too intense.

 So even when we're placing our corals throughout the exhibit, what we take into account is how much light they need. Then we place them throughout so the animals that need more intense light are closer to the top of the exhibit and the animals that need the least light are down at the bottom." 

Frequentist visitors to OdySea may have also noticed that the jellyfish have been moved to new homes in an area dedicated to the floating, translucent creatures. 

Included in the exhibit are upside-down jellyfish, moon jellyfish and Australian spotted jellyfish. 

Next month, the aquarium will welcome the Pacific Sea Nettle, making OdySea home to one of the nation's largest jellyfish exhibits.

"The unique thing about jellyfish is that they come in all different shapes and sizes," Peranteau said. 

"One of our goals was to bring in a whole jellyfish gallery where people could come sit down and have that Zen moment where they're immersed by the dark lighting and the bright jellyfish." 

On the second floor of OdySea Aquarium, guests can now grab a cold or warm coffee from Starbucks, which Galloo said was added because it is "a family favorite where almost everyone can find something that they love."

"It's become a big thing here and it's been a real blessing," she added. 

Information: OdySea Aquarium is located at 9500 East Vía de Ventura Suite A-100, Scottsdale. 480- 291-8000, odyseaaquarium.com