Oceanarium Warsaw Oceanarium is a small aquarium located inside Centrum Handlowe Blue City, which is a large shopping centre in Warsaw. It is only one room with two ‘aisles’ of tanks. Entrance fee is 20 zl for adults and 15 zl for children (approximately 5/4 US dollars and Euros [I hadn’t realised the Euro had dropped so low to be the same as dollars!]; 3.50/2.50 British Pound Sterling.) It is set in more or less one large room which is divided into two so it is like a very long ‘U’ shape. When you first come up to the entrance, you see a very tacky entrance the same size as a shop front. It is decorated with big pictures of fish and around the entrance are balloons including some fish-shaped balloons. It was clearly aimed at young children with the design of the entrance. The first thing you see is a desk which is where you buy the tickets, behind this desk is a large saltwater tank that is a semi-circle in shape with a mixture of fish species. You then turn left and enter the aquarium. First there is a cylindrical saltwater tank at the corner and then left again leads into the aquarium. This is a long pathway (around 40- 50 meters) with mock-rock walls in which there are around a dozen tanks set with various species of saltwater fish including some morays, live corals and anemones. The lighting is blue lighting for a sort of under-sea feel. There are also pictures of fish on the walls. You go down the pathway and you reach a tank for a baby black tip reef shark. The tank is quite small in my opinion and will certainly be too small when the shark is an adult. I also saw the shark being fed pieces of white fish while I was there. You then turn around and there is another equal sized path leading back up to the entrance but this side is for freshwater fish. The lighting here is more brown in colour and I liked how this gives more of a freshwater-like feel. There is about the same number of tanks here with various freshwater fish species. These were all large species and there were no small community fish like tetras which I thought would have been a nice addition. Some of the species were gar, red-tailed catfish, piranhas, oscars and African cichlids. There was also a tank with a fairly large Chinese Softshell turtle. You then come back to a large picture of a fish before turning right and leaving the aquarium. It is of course a small aquarium but with a nice range of fish. Nothing particularly rare but it was all nicely done (apart from the small and bare looking shark tank) with decorations and is a nice place to watch some fish. I spent around half an hour in the aquarium and I wouldn’t go out of my way for it but since I often go to the shopping mall that the aquarium is in and it is one of Warsaw’s largest so I would recommend popping into the aquarium if you are in the mall. I will be posting some pictures once a gallery is created.
