Interesting:
Aquarium water made seaworthy
Tons of salt added to create ocean habitat
Jim Tharpe - Staff
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
The ocean came to downtown Atlanta in a bag. Actually, a lot of very large bags.
When the folks at the Georgia Aquarium needed to transform 5 million or so gallons of Chattahoochee River water into seawater for creatures like giant grouper, tarpon and whale sharks, they turned to a product familiar to anyone with a saltwater fish tank at home.
Truckloads of Instant Ocean were shipped in 2,400-pound bags from the manufacturer in Mentor, Ohio.
"It's a combination of salts to replicate water in the open ocean," said Les Wilson, marketing manager for Instant Ocean. "It has all the trace metals and salt content that you would find if you took a sample from just about any ocean in the world."
The Georgia Aquarium, just north of Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, will be the largest fish tank in the nation, and one of the largest in the world, when it opens its doors to the public Nov. 23. It will contain more than 100,000 fish and mammals. Two whale sharks, the world's largest fish, are already swimming in a tank the size of a football field.
Converting fresh water to seawater is a relatively recent concept.
When Chicago's Shedd Aquarium opened in 1929, it hauled saltwater from Key West, Fla., aboard custom-built rail cars. The Shedd, currently the largest indoor aquarium in the United States, began using Instant Ocean in the mid-1970s.
Wilson said his company shipped to the Georgia Aquarium about 50 truckloads of the product, which looks like finely ground table salt but "just a little whiter."
"We spent three days opening the bags and mixing it," said Jeff Swanagan, the aquarium's executive director. "It was a team-building experience."
The Instant Ocean salt was mixed with water from the city water supply, which comes from the Chattahoochee. The water was then circulated in the tanks for a couple of months before the first fish were placed there. "It has a few minerals in it, but it's mostly salt," Swanagan said.
The mixture is available at local pet and aquarium supply stores in containers of just a few pounds. Wilson said it takes about two cups of Instant Ocean to covert five gallons of fresh water into seawater.
The 1-ton-plus bags sold for commercial uses are known as "super sacks."
Officials at Instant Ocean and the Georgia Aquarium declined to disclose what it costs to convert 5 million gallons of river water into something akin to the ocean. However, 16 pounds purchased over the internet cost $20, and that's only enough to convert about 50 gallons of water. At that retail price --- bulk discounts aside --- the Georgia Aquarium conversion could run up to $2 million.
That means each sack is enough salt to make 7500 gallons. Tractor trailer GVW weight limits mean that only 17 of them can be shipped per truckload.
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