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1 A new year is almost upon us, and 2013 marks a milestone in both the history of Instant Ocean and the Children's Aquarium at Fair Park. In 1936, the facility opened its doors to the public (it was then called the Dallas Aquarium), and was the first inland public aquarium in the southwestern United States. The facility boasted a Volume 28 Issue 4, 2012 Fifty Years of Instant Ocean Website Product Catalog Ocean of Knowledge Dealer Locator Science and Heritage Instant Answers Welcome to Instant Ocean SeaScope! We're excited to share our November issue which features a great piece from Barrett Christie, the aquarium supervisor for the Dallas Zoo and Children's Aquarium. He traced their history with Instant Ocean and shared quite a few images from over the years. We think you'll enjoy the read! When you've finished, join us on Facebook, and let us know what you think! Fifty Years of Instant Ocean in Dallas: A Look at the Children's Aquarium at Fair Park by Barrett L. Christie - Aquarium Supervisor, Dallas Zoo and Children's Aquarium at Fair Park

2 Save today on your favorite Instant Ocean products! Click here to view and download coupons now. Potomac Valley Aquarium Society Meeting and Election November 3, 2012 Green Acres Scool Fairfax, VA Brooklyn Aquarium Society Event November 9, 2012 New York Aquarium Brooklyn, NY Michiana Aquarium Society Speaker Event November 20, 2012 Roseland Town Hall Roseland, IN If you are aware of an upcoming event, you may also contact MASNA to post on their calendar Enter our sweepstakes for a chance to win great prizes. Visit our Facebook page now and click the Sweepstakes tab to enter. diverse collection of (mostly freshwater) animals over the next quarter century of operation, many of which had never before been kept in captivity. In 1963, construction began on a major expansion, a saltwater wing that would effectively double the aquarium's size. This expansion made the facility the third largest public aquarium in the U.S. at the time, and one of only a few landlocked facilities in the world displaying marine fishes. Long before this construction even began, the aquarium's curator, Jeff W. Moore, and his staff began maintaining marine fishes and invertebrates in experimental closed systems with various water sources, both natural and artificial. The original plan for sustaining the menagerie of proposed marine tanks involved utilizing a tanker truck to make the 600-mile round trip to the coastal city of Galveston to supply the facility with natural seawater. But their trials with artificial seawater sent them down an exciting new path. The aquarists determined that the best course of action was to use what was being called the "Improved Frankfurt Mixture" that was under development by William E. Kelley and Richard Segedi. The pair, who would go on to found Aquarium Systems, Inc. the following year, were hired as consultants and visited Dallas during construction to mix what must have been an extraordinary amount of artificial seawater for the time: 30,000 gallons in the initial batch! With the training Segedi and Kelley provided the staff, the Dallas Aquarium continued making the formula that would come to be known as Instant Ocean. The radical new formula worked better than anyone could have imagined, and the marine wing opened in 1964 to record crowds boasting over 1,500 ocean-dwelling animals representing 78 individual species. That collaborative legacy continues today, as the aquarium still uses Instant Ocean to keep its fishes happy, just as it has done for a half-century. In 2009 another major renovation and expansion project began on the venerable old aquarium. The facility was temporarily closed and the animals were relocated in order to begin a comprehensive renovation, restoration, and expansion. The new addition, called Stingray Bay, added 5,000 square feet of exhibit space to the facility, featuring a shark tank and stingray touch tank. The new-andimproved aquarium re-opened to the public as the Children's Aquarium at Fair Park in 2010 to eager crowds.

3 During the renovation, the existing building was gutted and retrofitted from the ground up with state-of-the-art technology. Airlift-driven undergravel filters were replaced with protein skimmers, ultraviolet sterilization, biofiltration, and other modern life support equipment. Wooden platforms gave way to fiberglass, metal pipes were replaced with PVC, plate glass viewing windows were replaced with acrylic panels, and the natural sunlight cascading through the skylights was supplemented with metal halide, power compact fluorescent and LED technologies. Sophisticated computerized monitoring and control systems were installed, allowing automatic emergency paging and remote web control of temperature, water flow, oxygen saturation, and other parameters. Despite all of these advances, it was decided from the outset that some things are best left unchanged; and one thing that has remained the same is the exclusive use of Instant Ocean to create the ideal seawater medium for the wide diversity of marine life in the tanks. The use of high-quality artificial seawater has enabled the aquarium's dedicated staff to achieve a number of accomplishments in fishkeeping over the years. Longevity of captive animals is one factor, and the age of many of the animals kept at the aquarium is noteworthy. When the aquarium was closed for renovations in 2009, a review of the animal records revealed that some of the animals were quite old for captivity and still going strong. These aged specimens included several 16-year-old stonefish, a 13-year-old walking batfish, 10-year-old Rhinopias scorpionfish, 9-year-old chocolate-chip starfish, 7-year-old cone snails, and a recordsetting White's Seahorse (Hippocampus whitei) that was just shy of her seventh birthday!

Keeping many of the animals that today delight our visitors, such as jellyfish, corals, and octopus, would have been beyond the wildest dreams of the staff of an inland aquarium 76 years ago when

4 Keeping many of the animals that today delight our visitors, such as jellyfish, corals, and octopus, would have been beyond the wildest dreams of the staff of an inland aquarium 76 years ago when this facility was built. Today technological advances have made husbandry of such animals more common, but no less demanding. Having precise computerized control systems and advanced life support equipment is a great benefit, but all the technology in the world is useless without high quality seawater, good In addition to having long-lived fishes, our facility is proud to have displayed a very diverse collection of animals. Since detailed record keeping began in the 1970s, more than 900 fish species (and hundreds more invertebrates) have been successfully maintained at the aquarium. These comprise almost everything imaginable from seahorses to sharks, and include some notable species such as the first sawfish kept in artificial seawater, who called Dallas home from 1966 to 1977 before being transferred to another aquarium. In the 1980s and 1990s, much work was done with anglerfishes, and the aquarium received the first known specimens of what would later be described as the psychedelic frogfish, Histiophryne psychedelica. Another area where the aquarium has blazed new trails is in determining the husbandry requirements of the notoriously delicate walking batfishes (Ogcocephalidae), enabling these bizarre animals to be successfully quarantined and acclimated to captivity. While longevity and prosperity are surely signs of good husbandry, in the eyes of many aquarists, the surest measure of providing top quality care is when reproductive behavior can be observed. For their efforts, the aquarium's staff has been rewarded with a number of breeding events that include such notable species as bonnethead sharks, Sphryna tiburo; zebra sharks, Stegastoma fasciatum; chambered nautilus, Nautilus pompilius, among many others. In recent years, the aquarists have bred numerous species of seahorses and pipefish, and been quite successful in propagating several types of jellyfish.

5 nutrition, and a dedicated staff of aquarists. As the art and the science of aquarium keeping continues to evolve, who knows what fantastic and beautiful examples of marine life the aquarium will be able to share with the people of Dallas in the next 50 years of our partnership with Instant Ocean. Back to the top About Instant Ocean Careers Contact Pressroom Privacy Policy 2012 Instant Ocean is a Division of United Pet Group. All Rights Reserved.

Ocean Teens. Water Quality Worksheet SECTION 1 SECTION 2. Tidal Touch Pools & Seahorse Sanctuary - Temperature. Jellyfish Kingdom - Light

Ocean Teens. Water Quality Worksheet SECTION 1 SECTION 2. Tidal Touch Pools & Seahorse Sanctuary - Temperature. Jellyfish Kingdom - Light SECTION 1 Tidal Touch Pools & Seahorse Sanctuary - Temperature Feel the temperature of the water in the touch and tell tank. It is water from the ocean! Therefore it has the same temperature as the ocean.