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Cairns Aquarium Cairns Aquarium Walkthrough

Discussion in 'Australia' started by Sunbear12, 11 Dec 2017.

  1. Sunbear12

    Sunbear12 Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Location:
    Adelaide,Australia
    At the end of November, I made my way to Cairns for a 3-day workshop on keeping and breeding invertebrates. For some crazy reason I made the decision to drive from Adelaide at the bottom of the country to Cairns at the top solo over 4 days. Thus, began an Australian epic road trip in which I visited 20 zoos over 15 days. All up I drove roughly 6,000km (3,728miles). While I’ve yet to have time, and doubt I will to do a full trip report I wanted to provide a walkthrough and review of the brand-new Cairns aquarium which had only just opened a few weeks earlier.

    Cairns aquarium opened on September 19th at a cost of $54 million. It features 11 themed zones.

    The Cairns aquarium is housed in a modern all white building at the heart of Cairns main business district. Once inside the ticket desk is directly in front of the doors. To the left is the entrance to the restaurant.

    One buys their ticket and then proceeds to the side where turnstiles allow you to scan your ticket and enter the attraction. One issue with these is that the ticket is only scannable once but the ladies at the counter were more than happy to let me through multiple times. Once through the turnstiles one is treated to the obligatory photo. One nice surprise though is that here the photo is an offer and I was able to decline the photo easily.

    The photo area is located just before the first of the aquarium’s themed zones, river systems. This includes 5 similar sized tanks on one wall with a cylindrical tank at the centre of the room. The wall tanks display a range of freshwater fish including perch, grunters, saratoga, barramundi and catfish. The central tank is home to long finned eels. One thing I will point out at the start of the review is that I do not know much about fish and as a result the species listed are only those which were signed on my visit.

    From here one moves in to creeks and streams. This is a single room. At its centre a cylindrical tank houses a school of lake eachman rainbowfish. Down one wall is 3 tanks of a similar size housing blue lobsters, red claw crayfish and giant jungle prawns. These tanks feature plain blue or green walls with a mock rock backing and some small plants and logs.

    Next is flooded waterways and billabongs. This area features one large tank which is the home of some of the aquarium’s stars. On my visit this exhibit was home to a large school of barramundi and a freshwater whip tail ray. Visible through a grate out the back in an acclimation pool was a pair of freshwater sawfish which were released in to the exhibit the following week. This exhibit featured viewing through a curved glass panel down one side with a large glass panel down the other side with a small seating area.

    From here you are ushered up an escalator or lift to the second floor where you emerge in the tropical rainforest zone. This begins with a touch tank with three compartments. On my visit two of these were occupied one with a children’s stick insect and the other with a blue tongue lizard.

    Next up is a large tank housing groups of kreft’s river turtles and jardine river painted turtles. This tank featured a tunnel running through the back which kids could crawl through. It was relatively large for the turtles contained.

    Following the path, one comes to 5 vivariums which were relatively large compared to standard reptile exhibits. These housed eastern water dragons, green tree pythons, jungle carpet pythons, water pythons and boyd’s forest dragons. Each tank was fitted out with mock rock walls, branches, vines and a pond at the front which was larger in the water python tank.

    The following habitat is a floor to ceiling glass fronted habitat which features mostly water with a small land area at the side. Housed here were some of the largest pig nosed turtles I have seen along with a mertens water monitor. Directly across from this tank was a cylindrical tank housing freshwater snakes. This was filled with water with a range of rocks and logs providing a basking spot at the centre. This tank was in the middle of a wall with viewing from both sides.

    Following this one rounds a corner in to the rainforest floor area. This is a series of 10 tanks on a rounded wall. The first tank housed green tree frog. The second was signed for blue tree snake which was off exhibit. Then there was individual small tanks for water spider, dainty tree frog, Australian tarantula and peppermint stick insect. Another large tank held white lipped tree frog. Then a mixed species tank held major skinks with a golden orb weaving spider. Then a tank for stick insects followed by a tank for leaf tail gecko with a burrow below for giant burrowing cockroaches.

    Next up was the most impressive section of the aquarium. A pair of side by side tanks set what for me is a new standard in reptile exhibitory. These two vivariums are better described as small rooms. I stepped them out and discovered them to be roughly each 6mx5m and they were approximately 3m tall. The first was home to emerald tree monitors. Unfortunately, none of the staff I spoke to could determine where these were acquired from, but all were quick to point out they were not wild caught. They are the only ones of their kind in captivity in Australia according to the aquarium. Three specimens were seen in this enclosure which was fitted out with a small pond, a range of mock trees and vines plus a range of mock rock walls. Next door a similar enclosure had a waterfall and more mock rock and housed a number of fully grown scrub pythons with a range of Australian lizards including blue tongues, frilled neck lizards, bearded dragons and Cunningham’s skinks though there could have easily been more species as only the scrub python was signed.

    Next is life in the mangroves. This area is on a balcony over the admissions area and forms a two-storey atrium for the entry. This area is fronted with a large glass wall which makes the glare on the tanks bad. Three similarly sized tanks along the wall are home to a range of pufferfish, archerfish and mudskippers in two of the tanks. The other housed many juvenile saltwater crocodiles. A smaller tank at the end of the wall with a sloping mock rock interior housed a giant mud crab.

    Sitting in a corner between the mangroves and great barrier reef zones is a tank divided in to three sections. 2 sat either side of a tunnel which led to a pop up area in the centre of the sections. These 2 ran from the floor up and housed a range of small stingrays, crayfish and fish. The 3rd section was raised up and quite shallow. I did not note the species in this section.

    After this tank you entered the great barrier reef section. This section is divided by colour with each tank housing fish which are a similar colour. These housed a wide variety of reef fish. Also, here is a viewing balcony over the 2 story ribbon reefs tank. This is viewed again as the last tank in the aquarium.

    Mid-way through the great barrier reef section a small spur path is encountered which houses the reef dangers area. This section featured tanks for three species of lionfish, reef stonefish, honeycomb moray eels, striped catfish, moon jellyfish and finally an olive sea snake mixed with crown of thorn starfish.

    Leaving here more of the colour tanks are encountered before the path splits in two. Along one wall is the marine touch tank. This was the standard aquarium selection with a range of starfish, shark eggs, sea cucumbers etc. The centre dividing wall housed three tanks, one was home to Barbour’s sea horse, another housed grooved razorfish and I did not find an inhabitant for the final tank nor do I remember one being signed. Along the other wall was a tank housing clownfish and a display of live corals.

    Following the path, you come to another lift and escalator to return to the ground floor. Here you are in the main oceanarium area of the aquarium which is known as the coral sea zone. This is a similar design to the Melbourne Aquarium oceanarium but encountered in reverse. You begin in a circular viewing area with the tank wrapping around either side. From here you walk through the curved viewing tunnel. At the end is a large viewing window with a stepped seating area for presentations. The oceanarium is home to a school of scalloped hammerheads, spotted eagle rays, stars and stripes pufferfish, grey reef shark, porcupine ray, sailfin snapper, tessellated wobbegong, hump-headed maori wrasse, golden trevally, cownose rays and leopard sharks.

    At the end you come to another view of the ribbon reefs tank. According to the website this tank is 10m high and it viewed across both levels of the aquarium as noted earlier. It housed a range of fish. There were no species signs, so I cannot provide further details.

    From here you exit the aquarium through the gift shop. You are also given the option to return to the start of the coral seas zone and take the lift back to the start of the second level. One can also exit through the gift shop and re-enter the aquarium through the rivers and stream zone. One small issue is that the tickets issued on entry will not allow you to go through the turnstiles again, so you need to que up and get the ticket sellers to open the gate for you which could become a pain on busy days.

    Also at the aquarium is a restaurant called aqualuna which is home to a tank called under the pier which houses sharks, rays, angelfish and wrasse according to the website. I forgot to go look at this tank and as a result can not comment on its quality, though based on the rest of the aquarium I would anticipate it to be good.

    Only two small issues brought down the aquarium slightly. One is that no map is given out of the aquarium. This did make navigating it slightly difficult along with making this review harder to write. It is a one-way route though, so it isn’t particularly difficult to find your way around. The other is the signage which is always an issue in aquariums. Here they have gone with backlit signage. Each tank though only had 2 or 3 signs. The main exception was the oceanarium and the insect section which had 12 each. As a result, most species in the multi species tanks were left unsigned. Also, any tanks in the centre of a room tended to be signed alongside another tank on the wall which made it difficult if similar species were in both tanks.

    I spent over 4 hours exploring the Cairns Aquarium. It could comfortably be seen in 2 though. It is a very nice addition to the aquarium scene in Australia. It is now the third I have visited, and I place it at the top based on exhibit quality and species selection. Some sections of the aquarium were still a work in progress with species still to be added to the coral seas oceanarium and the flooded waterways and billabongs zone at least. As a result, the aquarium should continue to mature and grow.

    A number of photo's of the aquarium are now in the gallery.
     
    AWP, snowleopard, Chlidonias and 2 others like this.
  2. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the review @Sunbear12 - certainly sounds like it is well worth a visit!

    Do you know what species are meant by "freshwater snake"? Arafura file snake perhaps? Or maybe something else...?
     
  3. Sunbear12

    Sunbear12 Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Location:
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    @zooboy28 I had been meaning to change that to a better name by checking the scientific name. That is the common name on their sign. The species they have on display is more commonly known as the keelback snake (Tropidonophis mairii).
     
    zooboy28 likes this.
  4. snowleopard

    snowleopard Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

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    20 zoos in 15 days...6,000 km...detailed reviews...this sounds like one of my 'Snowleopard's Road Trip' threads. Great stuff! Thanks very much for taking the time to do this. :)
     
  5. TZDugong

    TZDugong Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Location:
    Toronto, ON
    Cairns is a truly awesome place and I'm glad that they now have an aquarium:).