Tour of Cal. Academy of Sciences

M

MellowReefer

New member
This weekend I took the "Behind the Scenes - Aquarium" Tour at the Academy of Sciences. Anyone else ever do this? It was interesting to see the parts that we got to see, but I guess I was hoping for more. We just had a general knowledge employee give us the tour, not someone who worked in the aquarium. I asked her if they used RODI to filter the tap water (after she only mentioned a carbon filter for the incoming tap water) and she just gave me a blank stare and said if I emailed her she could forward my question to someone who works there.

Just wondering if anyone else took the tour with someone that actually works in the aquarium or is more knowledgeable? I would take the tour again after calling to see if I can get that person.
 
My wife surprised me last year and got us the behind-the-scenes tour package. While I enjoyed it -- especially seeing how they made their own salt and looking at all of the bags of Dow Flake (which cracked me up for some reason) -- they only let me peek into the room that had the smaller tanks. It was definitely just a "canned" presentation. Not to say that it was bad, just not as detailed and focused as I had hoped.

I'm not a BAR member and have planned to join but never got around to it. I've met a few of the members, most of whom seem cool. Just kidding! Getting an in-depth behind-the-scenes tour would be an added perk.
 
@ Mello and D - BAR is great. We are a very cool group of reef freaks! :)

Last two back stage tours I've been on were done by Matt. I'd list his title but the new Academy of Science web pages make finding him impossible! He is not one of the standard tour guides but an aquarist there.
 
Matt is an aquatic biologist there and he's very knowledgeable as well. To answer your question, I think you might be able to request a tour with a residing staff aquarist, but it depends on their schedule (they are all usually very busy). Even when giving tours to their own employees, it's usually done by someone working in guest relations who offers these tours. If you're a volunteer at the aquarium, you get direct access to these rooms and get to ask a ton of questions!
 
I see that BAR has already scheduled a tour on Nov. 14th. So I'll just wait for that...looking forward to hanging out with fellow fish heads/reef nerds :)

I see that I just missed the frag swap, darn!

I would LOVE to volunteer at the Academy. But it's hard to commit to going there on a regular basis when I work full time, have my own tank to look after...someday when I'm retired it would be fun :)
 
Anyone knows if the Steinhart would take fish?
I have a 10yr old blue and purple tang that I would like to go to large tank.
 
nashorn said:
Anyone knows if the Steinhart would take fish?
I have a 10yr old blue and purple tang that I would like to go to large tank.
Click to expand...

They do accept fish, you can fill out the form below provided by Mellow Reefer. They also love getting corals as a donation. If you have a monster cap or something that is out growing your tank, contact CAS and see if they can use it. Many of the corals in the Commensalism exhibits have been donated by generous hobbyists.

The aquarium uses the local water source and does not use RO/DI. One of the reasons they make their own salt from scratch is to mitigate the additional elements already present in the local water source. It is treated for chlorine of course!

Apparently they do have a direct source to the Bay but according to Matt (I could be wrong here, it has been a while since we talked about it) they haven't used it in 20 odd years. He attributed to the Bay having lower than desired salinity rates and talked about other issues with using water from the Bay. In the end, they end up needing to amend the saltwater anyway. I believe the salinity of the bay gets to about 30 ppt (at the mouth of the bridge), whereas our reef tanks use close to 34-35.

The irony is that I always see giant pallets of Mortons salt, which you know, is made from Bay water :rollface:

-Mark
 
Thanks Guys!
I filled out the form and hope they will take them.
WoW......I'm so happy since I had them for over 10 years.
 
"The aquarium uses the local water source and does not use RO/DI. One of the reasons they make their own salt from scratch is to mitigate the additional elements already present in the local water source. It is treated for chlorine of course! "


I been using just Tap with prime for years. I started the tank using RODI but didn't notice any differences after changing over.
I do have a red macro algae but that's from the carbon dosing.

I started a tank thread if anyone want to check it out.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2488750
 
I guess that would be WAY too expensive and waste a lot of water if they ran it through even just RO filters. I heard that SF city water is pretty good actually. Here in Daly City we have some well water mixed in and unfortunately my tap water tests about 50ppm for nitrate!

I was wondering why they mixed their own salt instead of just getting a truckload of Instant Ocean delivered. Now it makes sense if they have to consider that tap water already has some calcium and other elements so they have to customize what they add to make it work.
 
Mark SF said:
They do accept fish, you can fill out the form below provided by Mellow Reefer. They also love getting corals as a donation. If you have a monster cap or something that is out growing your tank, contact CAS and see if they can use it. Many of the corals in the Commensalism exhibits have been donated by generous hobbyists.

The aquarium uses the local water source and does not use RO/DI. One of the reasons they make their own salt from scratch is to mitigate the additional elements already present in the local water source. It is treated for chlorine of course!

Apparently they do have a direct source to the Bay but according to Matt (I could be wrong here, it has been a while since we talked about it) they haven't used it in 20 odd years. He attributed to the Bay having lower than desired salinity rates and talked about other issues with using water from the Bay. In the end, they end up needing to amend the saltwater anyway. I believe the salinity of the bay gets to about 30 ppt (at the mouth of the bridge), whereas our reef tanks use close to 34-35.

The irony is that I always see giant pallets of Mortons salt, which you know, is made from Bay water :rollface:

-Mark
Click to expand...

Given how that salt is dealt with at Morton's (how the settlement ponds work, etc), and the fact its just a base for their mix, being from the bay has little effect on it in terms of pollution.

We go through 1 - 2 53' semis full of Morton's yearly, plus all the MAG/Calcium/Buffer/Etc where I work
 
MellowReefer said:
I guess that would be WAY too expensive and waste a lot of water if they ran it through even just RO filters. I heard that SF city water is pretty good actually. Here in Daly City we have some well water mixed in and unfortunately my tap water tests about 50ppm for nitrate!

I was wondering why they mixed their own salt instead of just getting a truckload of Instant Ocean delivered. Now it makes sense if they have to consider that tap water already has some calcium and other elements so they have to customize what they add to make it work.
Click to expand...

Plus IO is made on the other side of the US, thus would require freight from there.
 
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