Yesterday I went back to one of my favourite spots and least favourite spots at the same time the Melbourne Aquarium. Since my last visit early last year it’s gone through a plethora of changes mainly for the better but some for the worse. The first tank is the same as always but has a lot better signage and a few new inhabitants including a species of pig fish and various bullseyes and sweeps. Bay of Rays went from very good to very poor and now to excellent again. Unfortunately the aquarium has no plans to bring back elephant sharks but instead has loaded the tank with more hides and a lot more animals including Southern Sand Flathead, Mado, Dusky Flathead, Moonlighter, Old Wife and the extremely hard to spot shark that is small and a type of cat shark and I can’t remember it’s name. Of course there are still Port Jackson Sharks and Southern Fiddler Rays. I honestly don’t care about the touch pool so moving in to the next four sections, being the flats, the new ocean invaders, the new Anchient oceans which is here to stay and Predators of the reef. Coral caves did get the axe which I don’t mind as the most interesting inhabits were moved to ancient oceans anyway and the new jelly area is decent. Shore/Flats is one of the few sections that has gotten a poor decline with the smaller tank losing Pufferfish inhabitants. The bigger tank though now has a stingaree as well as the mullet, sweep and old wife. Ocean Invaders is a whole section dedicated to Jellyfish and although it’s certainly and upgrade from the very poor coral caves it’s not much of an upgrade when 5 of the tanks are moon jellies. In my opinion the Jellyfish Lab stays and the lions mane tank as it was pretty cool seeing all the Jellys but the rest should be replaced by fish exhibits preferably high diversity reef species OR estuary/river non Australian species. Predators is exactly the same and crap as always and needs some smaller tanks for fish like Snowflake morays, ribbon eels, grunts and such. And Anchient Oceans is pure bliss having plenty of new species to the aquarium including a strange long yellow fish with barbel like things. It has amazing species such as Blue Faced Angelfish, Coral Beauty, Epaulette Shark and many more. Old inhabitants from coral caves such as razor fish and Pyjama cardinalfish are also there as well as a cool new goby species which shares the tank. The tank next to this has the Sydney octopus. The last tank is the largest freshwater tank in the aquarium and contains a massive Saragota as well as two massive Pig Nosed Turtles (Fly River turtles), this is the first time I’ve ever seen this species and they are awesome. My recommendation would be to ditch the game section and add tanks for easy to acquire prehistoric looking freshwater exotic fish such as Butterflyfish (the topwater freshwater one), Discus, Ornate Bichir, Peters Elephant Nose, Giant Danios and an assortment of small exotics common in the pet trade. Now, down to the Oceanarium, which has tons of awesome new inhabitants including species of butterflyfish, (regular) nurse sharks, Tawny Nurse Sharks as well as all the returning fish species except for one. I’m sad to announce the shark ray/ bowmouth Guitarfish is no longer at the aquarium which is not good however the new species more than make up the absence. I’m nintey nine percent sure they Speartooth sharks are in the saltwater tank contrary to what some believe as there are sharks that aren’t black tips or white tips and don’t have the long fin sandbar whalers do. The Grey Nurse shark and Queensland Groupers are doing great as are the Sawfish, honeycomb whip Rays, Southern and Spotted Eagle Rays, Potato cod and to my surprise I’m pretty sure there are dull coral trout too. Threadfin Trevally, Cleaner Wrasse, Blue Trevally, Smooth Stingray, Golden Trevally, Snapper, Rainbow Runner, Yellowtail Kingfish I could go in and on about all the new and old fish in here big and small and what I’m saying is just the tip of the iceberg. The next tank which used to house sharks and green sea turtles no longer has either much to my dismay but does have a lot of unique and interesting fish species as well as the facilities rescued Flatback Sea turtles which are super cute. The large coral reef tank in the Cafe has gotten even better, clown triggerfish, porcupinefish, blue tang, bamboo sharks, damselfish of multiple kinds, all types of tangs, moorish idols this tank is getting better and better it just needs some small rays such as blue spotted and it will be well on its way to becoming a top level tank. Pinjara the Saltwater crocodile looks great and they have added more fish species to his tank which is great. As you can see I’ve given the aquarium mostly high praises so far but that is due to change as soon as we head up to the rainforest and it’s been massacared again. Remember that small tank that held the aquariums only exotic freshwater fish well they have just decided to put rainbowfish in it. With the exception of the Green Tree Python and Green and Golden Bell Frog and Mudskipper tank, and lungfish this whole section contains very little interesting species and very poor use of specs being holed up by a tank literally full of rubbish and other crappy stuff. There isn’t much here at all, they need to add more interesting herps like red bellied turtles, long necked turtles, Water pythons, and a few exotics but more importantly grt exotic fish species and make more tanks. The next section suffers a case of using species from previous exhibits the whole place being dominated by sweep and porcupine fish. There are some good species though, Australian Pilchard, Seadragons, spotted Handfish, skunk clownfish, Fijian Damselfish, Smooth toadfish, sailfin tang. This place just needs more interesting fish and it’s done an easy fix. Penguin Playground is as it is normally, too many penguins and not enough space however the Gentoos were swimming and jumping like absolute crazy. and that’s it gift shop is the same with its really cute stuffed animals (especially that stuffed cownose ray, I actually bought one last time and don’t regret it). Overall it was nice to do something despite the hazardous air quality coming in from the fires.
Species list I'll try to fill it as best as I can this is not definite. For some tanks I have insufficient memory so unfortunately I won't be able to fill them. Entrance Tank Bullseye sp Magpie Perch Wrasse sp Bay of Rays Necklace Carpet Shark Southern Fiddler Ray Port Jackson Shark Mado Sea Sweep Old Wife Southern Sand Flathead Blue Spotted Goatfish Moonlighter Ancient Oceans Exhibit 1 Tomato Clownfish Epaulette Shark Blue Faced Angelfish Coral Beauty Pomacentrus moluccanus Blood Red Hawkfish Pink Lined Wrasse Brown Tang Exhibit 2 Pjjama Cardinalfish Razorfish Goby species Exhibit 3 Sydney Octopus North Pacific Sea Star Exhibit 4 Yellow Tailed Fusuiir Yellow Goatfish Stocky Anithas Exhibit 5 Pig Nosed Turtle Saratoga (jardini) Mangroves Exhibit 1 Sparsely Spotted Stingaree Yellow Eyed Mullet Old Wife Exhibit 2? (No idea what species) Ocean Invaders I can barely remember this section except that it has tons of jellyfish including Moon, Comb and others. Predators Red Lionfish Giant Moray Yellow Moray unidentified moray Oceanarium Large Toothed Sawfish Grey Nurse Shark Grey Reef Shark Blacktip Reef Shark Whitetip Reef Shark Tawny Nurse Shark Speartooth Shark Sandbar Whaler Zebra Shark Smooth Stingray Honeycomb Whipray Southern Eagle Ray White Spotted Eagle Ray Saddle Grouper Queensland Grouper Potato Cod Snapper Humpback Red Snapper Yellow Tailed Fussir Blue Striped Snapper Golden Trevalley Blue Finned Trevalley Australian Snubnose Dart Copperbanded Butterflyfish Threadfin Butterflyfish Pacific Double Saddled Butterflyfish Rainbow Runner Bicolour Cleaner Wrasse Humphead Wrasse Barramundi Turtle Tank Australian Flatback Sea Turtle Stripey Australian Snubosed Dart Bicolour Chromis Threadfin Butterflyfish Pacific Blue Tang Orbiculate Damselfish Scissortail Seargent Coral Attol Brown Banded Bamboo Shark Sunburst Butterflyfish Dusky Butterflyfish (although I didn't see them on the visit, the aquarium had a livestream and they were in that tank) Harlequin Tuskfish Moon Wrasse Pacific Blue Tang Tiera Batfish Orbiculate Batfish Fijian Damselfish Domino Damselfish Three Striped Dascyllus Naso species Moray species Sailfin Tang Bicolour Goatfish Epaulette Shark Foxface Spotted Sawtail Red Toothed Triggerfish Clown Triggerfish Bird Wrasse Bicolour Chromis Six barred Angelfish Bicolour Angelfish Threadfin Butterflyfish Scissortail Seargent Unidentified fish include a golden coloured damselfish A rabbitfish an anenomefish a Porcupinefish a soilderfish I'll do the rest of the aquarium in a later post
An amazing Aquarium! I haven’t visited in many years, but one of my fondest memories from this Aquarium was getting to feed the fish in the Coral Atoll. It was incredible! I must visit again soon!
I was watching the Aquariums Facebook livestream on the Bay of Rays which has gone through some species changes! Much for the good as well. Notes: Silver Sweep (Scorpis lineolata) have been added The Necklace Carpet Shark has grown considerably! An unidentified Weed Whiting species has been added (not little or blue weed Whiting so it would be a lifer for me) An unidentified Mullet species has been added (most likely Yellow Eyed) Magpie Perch (Cheilodactylus nigripes) Although some of these species are already at the aquarium it’s a positive change anyway as possibly they may have been moved out of other tanks making room. Also, to note the damselfish in the Coral Atoll turned out to be a Golden Damselfish (Amblyglyphidodon aureus) EDIT: Rewatching a coral atoll live stream from a few weeks ago, it was from a different perspective (feeding) so I didn’t see many of the usual species in it but I’d still be confident that they are there as they were seen in a live stream only a couple months ago. These were the fish species not mentioned on that list for Coral Atoll that were visible. I still haven’t been able to identify the porcupinefish and Soliderfish and I keep forgetting the name of the rabbitfish. I also can’t be bothered trying with surgeonfish of any genus as for me they all look the same, there’s at least 3-5 species of Acanthidae in the tank. I also still can’t identify the anenome fish. Flame Hawkfish (Neocirrhites armatus) Blue and Gold Fusiller (Caesio caerulaurea) Hogfish sp. (Most likely Diana’s Hogfish) Barrier Reef Chromis Clown Surgeonfish Emperor Angelfish Silver Moony (Monodacltys Argentus) Unidentified Thallasoma species (it’s not lunare)
