Hello fellow ZooChaters - We are down to the last 7 months until the opening of the new Living Planet Aquarium. At this point I thought some of you would be interested in the process and photos. Since I am involved with the design of this project I can answer any questions you might have about it and building an aquarium in general. If I can't answer the question I can find out. I'm not sure the best way to present this information - should I post the pictures in the Gallery or as attachments in this post? How would you folks prefer and what would you be interested in?
IMG_1867[1].JPG (1.92 MB) - Gentoo Penguin Exhibit. The curved area underneath will be an underwater viewing area. Viewing from the top as well. IMG_1889[1].JPG (1.42 MB) - Outside of Shark Tank IMG_1879[1].JPG (1.90 MB) - Amazon Giant's tank
Besides the actual construction of the building and the main large tanks there are thousands of other aspects that need to be created. I carved these orcas out of 1 pound foam. They have an internal steel frame and are coated in sheetrock mud. Soon they will be covered with fiberglass and painted with gel coat. These will be in the lobby for guests to climb on.
Our husbandry staff are going out collecting this week - mainly looking for black tips. The species of sharks that we will be displaying are: Black Tips, Black Tip Reef, White Tip, Nurse, Wobegong, Sandbar, Grey Reef. They will share the tank with a green sea turtle (possibly another as well... maybe a loggerhead), lots of unicornfish, humphead wrasse, green moray, rays, guitarfish, and lots of little tropical reef fish. The penguin exhibit (which we are working on this week and I will post pictures of soon) is being carved out of foam that will be coated in concrete. The floor is being poured and sculpted so the penguins do not get "bumblefeet" - a condition that penguins can get if they stay too long on a flat surface instead of irregular floors. Crazy hot right now in Utah... just about died mapping out the floor of the penguin exhibit today.
Future Plans The Living Planet Aquarium is due to open in December (as long as there are no setbacks) and with 136,000 square feet of space and 1 million gallons of water it will be a fantastic addition to the state of Utah. Hogle Zoo has been growing by leaps and bounds and now with a top-class aquatic facility things are looking up in that part of the world! Judging by the size of the facility, the number of exhibits, the species listing, etc, it would seem that it will certainly be one of America's top 20 aquariums and perhaps even squeak into the top 15.
Construction Updates Here are some more pictures from the Living Planet Aquarium construction... It feels that the days just fly by yet progress seems to move sloooooowly... i always think that I am running around far more than I have time to accomplish anything. Yet some things are getting done. I've attached a few pictures of the shark tank construction - note the walk through tunnel. Besides the tunnel, there is viewing from the guest side as well as a banquet room (the big window view looking toward the tunnel.) I've also attached the penguin exhibit that I carved out of giant blocks of foam with a chainsaw. Yes I felt especially manly (usually all my work is done behind a computer which is decidedly less macho) though having done this exhibit I am more than willing to never pick up a chainsaw again... Other images include my barnacle fabrication assembly, progress on our life size leatherback sea turtle, and the Amazon cave cockroach exhibit which will look like the inside of a wet cave complete with dripping stalactites. This is something I am especially proud of - the smaller tanks (though some are the size of my kitchen!) are really being designed with love by our husbandry staff. Too many times the small tanks at zoos look like something straight from Petco. We are making a real effort to make each tank look like a slice of nature. 5 months and counting! -Chris
More images... Oops... that was a shot of the lobby, not my barnacle production... We are making barnacles, limpets, goose barnacles, and blue mussels for the tide pool rocks. I made molds off of real shells (except the goose barnacles, which I sculpted out of clay)... then I cast them out of WEP, which is a plaster-style resin, and I have a very talented team of artists paint them. I also had a group of students sign two styrafoam heads and I sent one to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and they sent it down 1.3 miles into the trench, which shrunk it down to the size of my fist. This will be for the deep sea exhibit. Oh and that's me wielding a chainsaw. Groovy!
Currently I am the Art Director for the Living Planet Aquarium but when the new building is open I will go back to being a contractor for zoo/museum/aquarium design and marketing.
Here are some more images from the Living Planet Aquarium build. We have a company called Boulderscape doing the rock work and they are incredible. I've attached some images of the slot canyon and the around the Amazon Giants tank. The large fiberglass tank being moved in is the Flooded Forest tank which will house caiman lizards and a swarm of tetras, cordy cats, and plecos.
44 days left... here's the news report today. Note the barnacles and mussels on the tidepool... yeah, been attaching those @#$! things all day... Living Planet Aquarium prepares for December opening | Deseret News
