Day 2 at the aquarium

Tony, the biologist I'm working with/shadowing was covering two other biologists Saturday... so he was a little busy. He mostly had me off doing a lot of stuff on my own, so it was a nerve-racking day. I started off cleaning the glass in one of the smaller exhibits (by small, I mean maybe 100 gallons), and then had to clean the gravel using a siphon.

After that, Tony gave me a tray of food for another one of the exhibits--this one is probably the largest that I work with. It has a bunch of little fish, a few big fish... and a 3-foot barracuda. That has to be hand-fed. With no pole.

Okay, this barracuda isn't exactly "aggressive" like some are, and he doesn't jump out of the water or anything, but if your finger is nearby, or he feels something that "might" be a fish, he'll react... and it's freaking fast and powerful. All he does is open his mouth, move his head toward the prey, and snap his mouth shut, but he does it in the blink of an eye, and the sound echoes. When he sees you coming with the food, he swims to the surface, waiting. At first, I tried to just, you know, drop a fish near his head, but OF COURSE, the guy is blind in one eye, so if it's not right by his mouth, he won't snap. Sigh. On the next one, I got a bit closer, missed again, got a little bit closer, and he got it--but I think it was just luck. Tony came over and gave the last one to him, lol. Tony isn't fearful, but he still respects him. Here's a pic of him that I hijacked from someone's flickr account (as referenced in this post, this actually is not the fish in question--the one at the aquarium is an arapaima).

After that, I worked with the jellies (in a holding area not viewable by the public) that Tony was also covering. The jellies are so cool. There are several large tanks with different jelly species, and some smaller containers with tiny, tiny jellies in the larva stage--literally about 1/8" big. Tony had me siphon the bottom of two of the larger tanks, but this siphon was different. The only way to get it started was to put the siphon end in the tank, and suck on the other end--and hope you don't get a mouthful of water in the process. I got it started with no water in the mouth, but I ended up with saltwater on my lips. BLECH.

He then had me siphon another smaller tank with a ton of smaller jellies in it... bad idea. I accidentally sucked a few jellies up into the siphon. I don't think those particular jelly species were the kind that sting (or if they do, it isn't much), but I'm still leery of sticking my hand into a little 40-gallon tank filled with 200 jellyfish, which made it hard to control the end of the siphon. Poor jellies. :(

After lunch, we went into the quarantine area where Double Spot (the female tiger shark) was being held. She wouldn't eat, though, so Tony left and had me and another volunteer clean her tank with brushes on long poles. At first, we started on opposite sides of the tank, cleaning the bottom, but she seemed to get a bit nervous--she was swimming faster than she usually does--so we started cleaning on the same side, and she pretty much just stayed out of our way.

We moved on to another holding area, and began siphoning more tanks. I couldn't get the thing started, so the other volunteer I was working with offered to help... except I wasn't really paying attention, so when he got the water flowing, I didn't tell him to stop, and he got a mouthful of water. I felt really bad, but at the same time, I was secretly dying of laughter. I know, I'm evil.

Karma's a bitch, though. I decided I wouldn't make him do it again, and when I tried it, I got a mouthful of water--twice. At least it was freshwater, though, lol.

Mark, the biologist who "hired" me, took us around the aquarium to have a little fun since siphoning is kind of a boring, dirty job (I have to admit to a weird kind of satisfaction suctioning up uneaten and digested food, though). We went to the tank that holds the giant octopus, George Jr. Last time, I was with Tony and we fed him. He was much more sociable and playful then--grabbing everything within reach, cups, fingers, shoes, etc. He's a mischievous guy. This past Saturday, though, he didn't really want anything to do with the humans. He'd already been fed, so he wasn't really interested in food, nor did he want to play. He did come up a couple of times, but his mood seems to change quickly. He'd be annoyed and antisocial one minute (his skin changes color from vibrant red to dullish red, and he raises these things on his skin that make him look kind of "flakey"), and happy the next. The suckers on his tentacles were weird. Mark said if George was able to get a few tentacles on you, he'd probably be able to pull you down into his tank--kind of funny he said that, because I had visions of that happening after my last volunteer day, lol.

Mark also took us to feed a few rays in another holding tank. We held 1" pieces of fish in our hands, dunked our hands under water, and waited for a ray to swim by. I remember doing something like this at Sea World, but I don't remember those rays actually grabbing onto your hand and sucking! These rays swim right up to your hand, and "latch on" to find the food. It seems they actually prefer eating from hands than on the bottom of the tank. They're very sociable, and flap right up to the side of the tank to "say hi". Mark showed us one ray in particular that was pretty skinny, so I started trying to target feed him (or her, I can't remember). I'm sure Mark did that on purpose, knowing it would tug at my heart strings, lol.

So, that was my day. I can't wait to go back! The fish guts still make me want to squeal like a little girl. I figure I'll get past that someday.