Sea Life at Mall of America

Sea Life at Mall of America
44°51′15″N 93°14′32″W
Standort	Mall Of America, Bloomington, Minnesota, USA
Land area	70,000 square feet (6,500 m2)
No. of animals	10,000
Total volume of tanks	1,200,000 US gallons (4,500,000 L)
Website	http://www.sealifeus.com

SEA LIFE Minnesota Aquarium is a public aquarium located in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, USA. It is home to more than 10,000 aquatic creatures, including a large collection of sharks, seaturtles, stingrays and freshwater fish. The 1.2 million-gallon aquarium also features sea turtles, octopuses, and lobsters. Freshwater exhibits include game fish from the northern region of the United States, several giant catfish and an 180-pound (81.65 kg) alligator gar from the southern United States.

The aquarium includes a 300-foot (91 m) clear acrylic tunnel that lets visitors explore the underwater world while remaining dry. The aquarium also claims to have the "world's largest jellyfish collection" and the "world's largest shark exhibit".

History

The aquarium at the Mall of America was opened in 1996 under the name Underwater World. The aquarium took 18 months to build. In 2000, the re-opening of the aquarium changed its name to Underwater Adventures Aquarium. In 2008, the aquarium became a part of British-based Merlin Entertainments group of attractions, and was rebranded as a Sea Life Centres in March 2011.

In the summer of 2009, the aquarium debuted a brand new exhibit, Seahorse Kingdom, as well as a brand new touchpool for guests to interact more with sea life. This touchpool will be replaced with two new ones following the renaming.

In March 2010, Jellyfish Discovery was opened as the largest jellyfish exhibit worldwide.

Exhibits

Following a recent remodeling of the aquarium, the directional flow has now been reversed. What used to be the end of the aquarium is now where you begin your tour.

The first stop on the adventure is Ray Lagoon which features stingrays, a walk over deck, and special viewing bubbles. Next, visitors will proceed to the new touch pool.

Prior to entering the tunnel, visitors go through an exhibit known as "Jellyfish Discovery". This features several different kind of jellyfish including: pacific sea nettles, lagoon jellyfish, spotted jellyfish, blue blubber jellyfish, moon jellyfish, and cone jellyfish.

After this, guests walk through "Seahorse Kingdom, that features six species of seahorse, as well as pregnant seahorse fathers and baby seahorses. This was in tandem with the opening of a brand new touchpool for guests to experience, called the Rock Pool.

Then comes "The Coral Caves" home to tanks of live coral and popular attractions such as Clownfish and regal blue tang, which are popular with children due to the film Finding Nemo.

Now you enter "The Tunnel". The star attraction of SEA LIFE Minnesota, it is 300 feet long, with 1.2 million gallons of water, and divided into four separate sections. The first tank is the "Rainbow Reef", which resembles the coral reefs. It is home to schooling stingrays, puffer fish, and many others.

The largest tank (totaling 500,000 gallons of the aquarium's total 1.2 million) is "Atlantis" and is themed to look like an Atlantis Temple. This tank has seven different species of shark in it: sand tiger sharks, nurse sharks, brown shark, wobegong sharks, white tip reef sharks, and black tip reef sharks. In the summer of 2008, zebra sharks were added to the exhibit. It also contains southern stingrays, three giant shovelnosed guitarfish, two green sawfish. Atlantis is also home to several sea turtles – two loggerhead sea turtles, two kemp's riddley sea turtles, and two Giant Green Sea Turtles which were added in March 2011. In addition, it has groupers, red snappers, red drums, pork fish, jacks, permits, and many more species. Thrill seekers can go SCUBA diving in Atlantis and take home all the shark teeth they can find.

The next tank is the "Wild Amazon". This tank consists of an arapaima, arowanas, black pacu, midas cichlids, fossil catfish, pictus catfish, leopard catfish, tiger shovel nose catfish, leopard plocostamus, flagtails, silver dollars, and freshwater stingrays. This is meant to simulate the Amazon River, which has more freshwater species of fish than any other body of water in the world.

The freshwater exhibit "Sturgeon Lake" is designed to simulate a Minnesotan lake or northern river. That is, with the exception of the alligator gars, which cannot be found naturally in Minnesota. The other species exhibited in this tank include turtles, gar, bass, lake and shovel-nosed sturgeon, common carp, small mouth buffalo, tiger muskie, channel catfish, and paddlefish, among others. This tank you can go SCUBA Diving in and hand feed the sturgeon fish.

"Touch of the Wild Woods", is the final stop on your visit, and features koi and red-eared sliders, a live gopher snake (in a case), and a 60 year old, 180 lb. alligator snapping turtle named Brutus.

Promotions

A person wearing a Sharky costume roams the Mall daily, shaking hands with shoppers and posing for photos. Sharky is always accompanied by at least one other employee handing out discount coupons for the aquarium. Sharky can also be found at many offsite events, where he is accompanied by coupon carrying SEA LIFE Minnesota employees. Like many mascots, Sharky never speaks, though clearly can understand English and replies by pantomime.

The aquarium offers a special attractions pass in conjunction with the Mall of America's other main attraction, Nickelodeon Universe, to offer discounted rates for experiencing both of the mall's main attractions.

Also in the mall are several display stands that have coupons attached for mall goers to take, as well as two "shark cages" on the North and West sides of the first floor that offer a photo opportunity as well as coupons and a short informational video.

The aquarium has several different additional adventures for a small fee, such as snorkeling or diving in the tanks, behind the scenes tours, educational outreaches, birthday parties, and sleepovers in the Shark Cove section of their tunnel.

Events

In February 2002, the aquarium hosted Minnesota's first ever caviar tasting, which featured an American caviar connoisseur, was the kick off for the 8th annual Twin Cities Food and Wine Experience, and gave all money raised by the event to Minnesota Public Radio.

In the summer of 2007, the aquarium celebrated the release of Prince's new album by wearing purple shirts, having an impersonator perform in the aquarium, and naming a guitarfish after the musician.

Incidents

On February 1, 2008, a young female white tip reef shark was attacked by a larger sandtiger shark named Jesse, in full view of the public. The young shark survived the attack and made a full recovery. The attack prompted her to be named Fishstick. This event was one of the most covered stories in the media at the time.

External links

• The aquarium's official website