A Visit to the Waikiki Aquarium
About Our Tour with J. Charles Delbeek

We met Charles Delbeek at the entrance, and not having met him before we all introduced ourselves. Not being sure what the correct pronunciation of his last name was, we asked and he told us it is pronounced Delbake. For those of you who may not know who J. Charles Delbeek is, he is the renowned co-author of The Reef Aquarium: A Comprehensive Guide to the Identification and Care of Tropical Marine Invertebrates Vol. 1 & 2, along with other articles, magazine columns, books and publications that he has written. With formalities out of the way he proceeded to show us around to the exhibits inside the aquarium.

Photo by Debbie Hauter
When you first walk into the exhibit area, in a darkened area to the right you see three round acrylic display tanks with jellyfish in them. The ones that we took this picture of are a species of jellyfish (Mastigias papua) found in the saltwater lakes of the rock islands of Palau in the South Pacific. They differ from the species found in the famous "Jellyfish Lake" in that they do have the ability to sting mildly and as you can see from the photo, are absolutely stunning! Although they do possess zooxanthellae, they are also fed a diet of San Francisco Bay brand newly hatched brine shrimp three times a day. The other jellyfish displays featured tank reared Moon Jellies (Aurelia aurelia) and the common upside-down jellyfish, Cassiopeia sp.

From there we proceeded farther into the aquarium where the living exhibits for the fish and reef tanks were. The first one we came to was the Chambered Nautilus Exhibit. We were unable to take a picture of this exhibit as Charles told us that because of the deep depths these animals live at they do not have a cornea to protect their eyes and the bright light from the flash would damage their retinas.

Photo by Debbie Hauter
Here are a few of the photos we took while on our tour and it's hard to believe that we actually took these with a 35mm Kodak pocket camera. It is difficult to describe to you each and every tank we saw, but the collection of soft and hard corals, clams, fish and invertebrates was wonderful. We thought we'd share the few photos we took with you and then you can visit the Waikiki Aquarium for yourself and see how beautiful and inspiring it all is. A lot of the exhibits include fish from Hawaiian waters.
 

Photo by Debbie Hauter
For this particular picture that we took of the Giant Tridacna Clam Exhibit, we liked it so much we applied the image as wallpaper on our computer monitor. Feel free to do the same if you'd like by clicking on the image to download a full size pixel view. The largest exhibit they have is their 35,000 gallon "Hunters of the Reef" tank that includes Blacktip Reef Sharks, Jack's (or Trevally), and some of the larger species of marine predators.

Now for the stuff behind the scenes at the aquarium, the process of cultivating or propagating corals is always an ongoing project with their Coral Farm. We also saw seahorses that they are rearing that were totally fascinating. The tank had three different colors of Seahorses. The reason for this is that they will adapt to whatever they attach to and mimic what it looks like to blend into their surroundings. Truly an amazing little creature. It was interesting to find out that seahorses in Hawai'i are usually found out in open ocean waters near the surface.

The system behind the aquarium that keeps it running, besides the great staff, are two huge (about 250 gallon) rapid sand filters for the predator tank. The saltwater is supplied from a 40 foot deep seawater well.  Lighting for the aquariums consists of a combination of natural sunlight and tanks have either 5500K-400 watt, 5500K-250 watt, 10,000K-250 watt, 10,000K-175 watt, 20,000K-400 watt metal halides or fluorescents. A few of the exhibits have protein skimmers on them and are set up as closed systems, but the majority of the systems are based on a batched overflow set up.

One of the things we were drawn to were the various types of wavemakers or surge devices that they had set up. One type used a plastic container (like a 33 gallon garbage can), a pump to pump water from the tank back up into the container, and an overflow pipe back into the tank. This is known as the "bell-and-siphon method" and in the aquarium industry today goes by various names. One of them is the Carlson Surge Device (CSD), named after Dr. Bruce Carlson who is the Director of the Waikiki Aquarium. It was set up so the water would fill the container and when the water level reached a certain point, it automatically emptied itself back into the tank causing a flow of water and air bubbles back into the tank from the overflow pipe. The other was a "dump bucket" set up. Water was pumped from the tank up into a bucket, when the water would reach a certain level the bucket would tip over pouring the water back into the tank, resulting in a wave motion. We found an article that was published in the Marine Fish Monthly Magazine in August of 1996 by Dana Riddle for information on how you can make a simple surge device based on the bell-and-siphon method that you might find interesting.

We want to thank Charles Delbeek for taking time out of his busy schedule to take us on this tour. We highly recommend if you are going to be in the Waikiki area that you stop by the Waikiki Aquarium for an enjoyable, educational and fun excursion, or visit them online to take a virtural tour and check out their many live cams to learn all about the marine animals on exhibit here.

~Debbie & Stan Hauter

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