Monterey aquarium members

Went to Monterey aquarium today. Buying the student membership breaks even after two visits, so we decided to get the membership. Now we can go whenever we want! Well, we'll still have the 160 mi / 7 gal / $21 transportation cost, but that's not too bad.

We spent a lot of time looking at the cuttlefish. They're much bigger than the last time we saw them, and they're much more mature now. When they were young, there was a couple fish in the tank with them and they were pretty intimidated by the fish. When startled, they'd jet backwards, and if this trajectory intersected the wall, the bump would startle them into jetting backwards again, right into the same wall. We also got to see them get fed, which was very cool to see.

Anyways, they're big now. They have the tank all to themselves and are now fighting amongst each other. It looks like they're getting pickier about their food, too, because there was lots of food lying around the tank being slowly scavenged by hermit crabs and worm things.

We dropped in on the octopi a few times, but both were inactive. One was pretending (very successfully) to be a rock, and the other was sucked up against the top corner of the glass.

The new flamingo exhibit was nice, but I miss the planted tanks in the old river otter exhibit. We saw a spoonbill standing on a mangrove eating things off its leaves, which was rather odd. The terrariums seemed a little small for birds, though. The exhibit was accompanied by after-school-special anti-carbon messages, which is starting to feel a little heavy-handed, but I think the target there is right. Also apparently the Seafood Watch pamphlets are working, at least according to the aquarium organizers, so that's pretty cool.

Hopping fishes!

We saw them feeding the big kelp tank. A diver went in and all the fishes (including the rockfishes who look dead when they drift along in strange orientations) swam up to her to get the food (restaurant-quality squid, apparently) she was handing out.

Afterwards we talked to the dude narrating the feeding. Learned some pretty cool things. The kelp reproduces in the tank (and grows up, which he calls "recruitment") and grows pretty fast (couple inches a day) in the peak season. The tank water comes from the bay; filtered during the day for clarity, but raw water at night for the nutrients.

Lots of active predation in the tank. Scavengers keep it clear of dead fishes. The fishes reproduce, but other fishes eat the eggs, so there isn't recruitment. Other fishes eat sea urchins, which could pose a problem for the kelp.

Fishes school by size, so you'll have mixed species in a single school. When other species sneak into the tank, they can have trouble when the outgrow the species they sneaked in as...their larger size marks them for predation.

The first set of tuna in the big tank had unnaturally short life spans, and their autopsy showed it was due to cholesterol from the rich diet they were being fed. Oh noes! So they started feeding them healthier food (squid), and life span increased.

Baby jellyfish in a tube

Whelks, with feeding tubes

We also bought some strawberries and artichokes at a farmers' market on the drive down. The strawberries were meh and rotting quite rapidly (a day in a hot car didn't help). The small artichokes (10 for $1, which was what drew us in) are okay; not much of a heart but also not much of a choke. The big artichokes have a tasty heart, but what a strange vegetable to eat!